Research on translation universals emerges from a convergence of influences. The first is the old idea that translations are recognizably different from other texts. There is a long tradition of comments about translations sounding unnatural, which has led to the notion of “translationese”. Similarly, it has long been recognized that some aspects of the source text and its meaning or style are typically “lost in translation” (see Stylistics and translation). Underlying both these traditions is the assumption that any translation shares characteristics with other translations, since otherwise no generalization about typical weaknesses could be made in the first place.

References

Baker, M

1993 “Corpus linguistics and Translation Studies: Implications and applications.” In Text and Technology: In Honour of John Sinclair, M. Baker et al. (eds), 233–250. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins  TSB.

Blum-Kulka, S

1986 “Shifts of cohesion and coherence in translation.” In Interlingual and Intercultural Communication: Discourse and Cognition in Translation and Second Language Acquisition Studies, J. House and S. Blum-Kulka (eds), 17–35. Tübingen: Narr.  TSB

Chesterman, A

2004 “Beyond the particular.” In Mauranen and Kujamäki (eds), 33–49.  TSB

Laviosa, S

2002 Corpus-based Translation Studies: Theory, Findings, Applications. Amsterdam/Atlanta: Rodopi.  BoP

Mauranen. A. & Kujamäki, P

(eds) 2004 Translation Universals. Do they exist? Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.  BoP

Mauranen, O. & Koskinen, K

2010 “Reprocessing texts. The fine line between retranslating and revising.” Across Languages and Cultures 11 (1): 29–49.  TSB

Tirkkonen-Condit, S

2004 “Unique items – Over- or under-represented in translated language?” In Mauranen & Kujamäki (eds), 177–184.

Toury, Gideon

1995 Descriptive Translation Studies and Beyond. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.  BoP

Tymoczko, Maria

1998 “Computerized corpora and the future of Translation Studies.” Meta 43 (4): 653–659.  TSB

Further reading

Chesterman, A

2007 “What is a unique item?” In Doubts and Directions in Translation Studies, Y. Gambier et al.. (eds), 3–13. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins  TSB.

Halverson, S

2003 “The cognitive basis of translation universals.” Target 15 (2): 197–241.  TSB

House, J

2008 “Beyond Intervention. Universals in translation?” trans-kom 1 (1): 6–19.  TSB

Klaudy, K

1996 “Back-translation as a tool for detecting explicitation strategies in translation.” In Translation Studies in Hungary, K. Klaudy et al. (eds), 99–114. Budapest: Scholastica.  TSB

Pym, Anthony

2008 “On Toury's laws of how translators translate.” In Beyond Descriptive Translation Studies, A. Pym et al. (eds), 311–328. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins.

Ulrych, M

2009 “Translating and editing as mediated discourse: focus on the recipient.” In Translators and Their Readers. In Homage to Eugene A. Nida, R. Dimitriu & M. Shlesinger (eds), 219–234. Brussels: Editions du Hasard.