Jul 2026· International Journal of Education and Humanities· Vol 24, pp. 165-172· 0 citations· 20 references
Abstract
Translation has long been recognized as a major site of language contact, yet the mechanisms through which translated texts influence the development of modern Chinese remain underexplored. Drawing on a synthesis of corpus-based translation studies over the past three decades, this paper examines how translation has shaped modern Chinese from the perspective of language contact. Evidence from parallel and comparable corpora reveals that translation-induced changes are observable at multiple linguistic levels: lexical (increased frequency and expanded functions of prepositions, adoption of new vocabulary), syntactic (longer attributive structures, more explicit clause connectors, rising dependency distances), and registeral (convergence between translated and original academic prose on some dimensions but divergence on others). Theoretically, the “shining-through” effect of source languages, the normalization tendency of translators, and the gradual replication of frequency patterns from translated to original texts explain the transmission of these features. However, the shaping effect operates within the constraints of the target language system: translation activates and enriches existing grammatical resources rather than fundamentally altering Chinese linguistic typology. The paper concludes that translation functions as a conservative yet cumulative agent of change, accelerating ongoing trends while respecting the structural boundaries and cultural preferences of modern Chinese.
While the influence of language prestige on the source language shining through has been well-documented in studies involving typologically similar languages, its impact on typologically distant language pairs remains underexplored. This article examines the interplay between language prestige and typological differences in shaping the shining-through effect, extending the analysis to Chinese-English bidirectional translations. Based on a bidirectional parallel balanced corpus, the study compares the shining-through effect in both Chinese-to-English and English-to-Chinese translations through the application of principal component analysis and flexible discriminant analysis. The findings revealed that the shining-through effect was present in both translation directions but was more pronounced in English-to-Chinese translations. Additionally, the effect varied across registers, with imaginative texts showing a stronger tendency than the informative texts. These results provide further evidence supporting the hypotheses of language prestige, typological distance and risk aversion. A comparison with findings from studies involving typologically closer language pairs further suggests that typological distance may help explain variation in the influence of language prestige on source language shining through. Specifically, the prestige effect appears to be weaker when the source and target languages are typologically more distant, although this interpretation requires direct empirical testing in future research.
The translation of culture-specific items is difficult not merely because of lexical gaps, but because languages often
organize experience through different underlying cognitive categories. This study examines the Chinese core concept
qi (Gas), a radial category rooted in embodied experience and centered on the prototype of vital energy, and explains
why it is frequently fragmented in English translation. A bilingual database of 49 high-frequency qi-compounds was
built from the Chinese Proficiency Grading Standards for International Chinese Language Education and checked
against the Modern Chinese Dictionary and Oxford Learner's Dictionaries. The static morphological comparison
was then supplemented by qualitative analysis of authentic translations from medical classics, philosophy, literary
theory, ethical discourse, and fiction. The results show a systematic mismatch: Chinese organizes the qi-word family
through a shared morpheme and modifier-head construction, with 34 of 49 items placing qi in final position and 37
of 49 exhibiting modifier-head structure. By contrast, English renders these items through morphologically unrelated
simplexes, derivatives, phrases, and one compound, thereby distributing a continuous Chinese category across discrete
lexical domains such as air, strength, anger, courage, integrity, and atmosphere. Translation examples further reveal
metaphorical rupture when the force, container, and flow schemas of qi are replaced by static English entities. To
address this problem, the study proposes a cognitive compensation framework consisting of category transplantation,
semantic compensation, category re-implantation, and context-sensitive modulation. The framework contributes to
cognitive translation studies and offers practical implications for translating and teaching culturally dense Chinese key
concepts in applied language-learning contexts.
Ting Zhang, Zihan Yu· Journal of Applied Language...· 0 citations
A Systemic Functional Linguistics-Based Approach to Translation Studies: Theory and Application is a book offering a compelling and innovative exploration of translation as a dynamic process of meaning-making across languages and cultures. Moving beyond traditional views of translation as mere word substitution, this book presents translation as a socially embedded, context-sensitive activity that requires deep linguistic and cultural awareness. Grounded in Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL), the book provides readers with a powerful framework for understanding how language functions to represent experience, negotiate relationships, and organize meaning. It carefully bridges the gap between theory and practice by combining clear explanations of key SFL concepts—such as ideational, interpersonal, and textual metafunctions—with practical strategies for real-world translation tasks. Designed for students, researchers, and professional translators alike, this book features a wide range of authentic examples and case studies, covering academic, media, and literary texts. These illustrate how SFL can be applied systematically to analyze texts, make informed translation decisions, and enhance translation quality. By integrating linguistic theory with hands-on application, this book empowers readers to produce translations that are not only accurate but also contextually appropriate and culturally resonant. It is an essential resource for anyone seeking to deepen their understanding of translation and to develop a more reflective, analytical, and effective approach to language mediation.
Rudy Sofyan, T. Thyrhaya Zein, Erikson Saragih et al.· 0 citations
This pilot study examines how the English adverb actually is rendered in Slovak translation, drawing on a corpus of literary texts and their translations. As a multifunctional item, actually performs a range of syntactic and pragmatic functions in context, most notably those of emphasizer and disjunct. The analysis draws on three Slovak translations of works by the same English-speaking author. Although each translator worked on a different set of books, the corpus still makes it possible to compare translation strategies within a relatively consistent authorial style and to observe how individual translators deal with the same multifunctional source item. The study combines qualitative functional analysis with quantitative observations in order to identify recurrent Slovak renderings of actually, including lexical substitution, structural reformulation, attenuation, and omission. The findings suggest that translation difficulty arises not from the lack of Slovak expressive resources, but from differences between English and Slovak in the grammatical encoding of discourse-related meaning. In particular, functions expressed in English through sentence adverbials do not always correspond to a single formal category in Slovak, which increases the likelihood of functional shift or translation loss. The study contributes to translation studies and contrastive linguistics by showing how the pragmatic contribution of a frequent multifunctional item may be preserved, reinterpreted, weakened, or omitted in translation, and how these outcomes vary across translators.
Zuzana Knižková· Studies About Languages· 0 citations
This paper aims to define diachronic translation within a network of related concepts, such as intra-lingual translation, inter-lingual translation, rewording, historical stylization, substitutive adaptation, transformative transubstantiation, and modernisation. It also demonstrates the concept of diachronic translation using key examples from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales translated into Contemporary English. The author proposes two perspectives on diachronic translation: one as intra-lingual translation (transformative transubstantiation) and the other as inter-lingual translation (substitutive adaptation). To highlight the concept of linguistic distance, the paper compares passages from Middle English (specifically Chaucer’s work) with their Contemporary English versions and applies the idea of diachronic translation to this process of modernization. The paper argues that diachronic translation is an appropriate concept in this context, advocating for its use. Although this paper is somewhat preliminary and requires further evidence and examples, it raises awareness of the relatively underexplored phenomenon of diachronic translation. Whether viewed as intra-lingual (transformative transubstantiation) or inter-lingual (substitutive adaptation), diachronic translation can stand on its own if granted the proper epistemic recognition. It serves as a valuable resource for readers interested in the past, providing its insights in a modernized form. This paper calls for the formal acknowledgement of diachronic translation.
Sorin Ciutacu· Scientific Bulletin of the P...· 0 citations
As a canonical Chinese primer, San Zi Jing (The Three-Character Classic) has an English translation history spanning over two centuries, during which translation styles have exhibited significant diachronic variation. However, existing research predominantly focuses on static assessments of translation quality. Such studies fail to elucidate why translators’ linguistic decision-making exhibits a paradigm shift from a “heteronomous interpretation” to a “reassertion of translator subjectivity,” nor do they address the underlying sociological generative mechanisms. Adopting a corpus-based approach, this study conducts a multidimensional quantitative comparison of the English translations by Herbert A. Giles (1900) and Zhao Yanchun (2014) across three dimensions: lexical metrics, syntactic features, and discourse-level interpersonal dynamics. The data reveal that Giles’s translation constructs an explicating dialogic space via high-frequency function words and complex syntactic structures, reflecting the pragmatic habitus of early translators vying for symbolic capital within the sinological field. In contrast, Zhao’s translation achieves strict formal and semantic fidelity to the source text through exceptionally high lexical density and a trimetric rhythm. This demonstrates contemporary translators’ efforts to reconstruct the aesthetic discourse of Chinese classics by leveraging cultural capital under the “Chinese Culture Going Global” initiative. Ultimately, the study concludes that the evolution of translation style is essentially a textual representation of capital competition and structural power dynamics within the translation field, thereby providing replicable quantitative evidence for understanding the sociological mechanisms shaping the translation styles of Chinese canonical texts.
Xiaofeng Zeng, Wang Hai· International Journal of Eng...· 0 citations