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The Way of Improving Translated Texts' Quality by Removing ‘Translationese’
The Journal of Translation Studies
Abbr :
JTS
2008, 9(4), pp.269-287
DOI : 10.15749/jts.2008.9.4.010
Publisher : The Korean Association for Translation Studies
Research Area : Interpretation and Translation Studies
2008, 9(4), pp.269-287
DOI : 10.15749/jts.2008.9.4.010
Publisher : The Korean Association for Translation Studies
Research Area : Interpretation and Translation Studies
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Most translated texts are evaluated first by general readers who are native speakers of the target language but not experts in the original language. The readers unconsciously assess the quality of a translated text on the basis of vocabulary, grammar, and idiomatic or pragmatic usage of the vernacular language. The worse the quality of a text is, the more ‘translationese’ appears because ‘translationese’ is perceived as unnatural, impenetrable and even awkward. It is caused by extremely literal approaches to the translation process or imperfect knowledge of the target language. Therefore, the quality of translation would be improved, if translators removed translationese produced during translation process before submitting the work to their clients. This must be the final step of translation. This paper proves the aforementioned assumption through analysis of translated scientific articles from English into Korean excerpted from a well-known internet site. In addition, this paper analyzes typical types of translationese, listed according to frequency of occurrence. Translators must remove these errors listed on the paper to achieve better quality.
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