overtranslation

plural overtranslations

1. countableuncountablehuman sciencesThe act of overtranslating.

   Mistaking a servitude for an option can lead to overtranslation.

   1995, Jean-Paul Vinay, Jean Darbelnet, Comparative Stylistics of French and English: A Methodology for Translation, John Benjamins Publishing, →ISBN, page 16

   3 more examples

   One result of overtranslation is to render this development incoherent, trivial, or even imperceptible, since the development is already tacitly built into the translation from the beginning.

   2000, Hans Georg Gadamer, Lawrence Kennedy Schmidt, Language and Linguisticality in Gadamer's Hermeneutics, Lexington Books, →ISBN, page 73

   The aim of this article is to illustrate the commonest forms of overtranslation through representative examples drawn from a variety of sources and source languages.

   2001, Sin-wai Chan, David E. Pollard, An Encyclopaedia of Translation: Chinese-English, English-Chinese, Chinese University Press, →ISBN, page 716

   The [given] example [that "the closest natural equivalent may stand in a contradictory relation with dynamic equivalents"] is of the English words animal, vegetable, mineral and monster. The closest Chinese equivalents are dòng wù [動物／动物], zhí wù [植物], kuàng wù [礦物／矿物] and guài wù [怪物]. These all happen to contain the character wù [物], meaning ‘object’ (thus, dòng wù means ‘moving object’, hence animal). If these Chinese equivalents are chosen, such an unintended cohesive link would lead to what Qian Hu terms ‘overtranslation’.

   2022, Jeremy Munday, Sara Ramos Pinto, Jacob Blakesley, Inroducing Translation Studies: Theories and Applications, Routledge, →ISBN, page 58