translationese love

Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun translation studies Awkwardness or ungrammaticality of translation, such as due to overly literal translation of idioms or syntax.

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From translation +‎ -ese.

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Examples

  • Nonetheless, even though the King James version is "translationese", I imagine it must have influenced and still influence what bible-reading English speakers consider as prestige versions of English.

    languagehat.com: IN HIS MIDST. 2005

  • Mrs. Blue Skies -- translationese for music pushed through blown speakers.

    Archive 2009-02-01 2009

  • Mrs. Blue Skies -- translationese for music pushed through blown speakers.

    EACH PAGE IS THE FACET OF A PERFECT DIAMOND 2009

  • It is really in translationese rather than English.

    languagehat.com: IN HIS MIDST. 2005

  • For example, the last 8 lines of translationese I quote above:

    The Guardian World News Jonathan Jones 2011

  • They overlook the slight problem that the English word has no meaning even remotely corresponding to the Russian; it means 'a steplike troop formation; a level or grade in an organization or field of activity,' and nothing else—except to specialists in Soviet literature, who have absorbed this peculiar bit of translationese to the point that I have had a hard time convincing them that it exists nowhere else and that the "translation" should be retired forthwith.

    languagehat.com: TRANSLATION PROBLEMS. 2004

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