An Investigation In Translationese: Causes And Solutions

The present study centers on three questions:"What is translationese?","Under what circumstances is translationese likely to occur?"and"How can translationese be possibly avoided?"as an attempt to find the causes of and solutions to translationese. The study is imperative because translationese has, to some extent, harmed the beauty and purity of the Chinese language and the existing researches on tanslationese lack strong theoretical support. In this paper, Catford's theory of translation shifts is employed to analyze examples tainted by translationese, with Dong Qiusi and Zhang Guruo's Chinese versions of David Copperfield as the source material for comparative study of the causes of and solutions to translationese. The latest research findings on the difference between Chinese and English language are also utilized to explain the causes of translationese. The result shows that translationese is most likely to occur when the structure shift is necessary in translation, and some times occur when unit shift and class shift are involved in translation, but seldom occur at intra-system shift level. These findings can raise the awareness of translators and teachers of translation, which in turn will hopefully minimize the translationese in the translation works and safeguard the purity and beauty of Chinese language.