A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements
The chairman’s statement of the corporate annual report plays an important role in informing the decision-making of investors. Thus, it is often targeted at an international audience. The present study compares the syntactic complexity of translated chairman’s statements (Chinese to English) and non...
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Format: | Article |
Language: | English |
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Western Sydney University
2023-02-01
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Series: | Translation and Interpreting : the International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research |
Subjects: | |
Online Access: | http://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/1667/431 |
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author | Zhongliang Wang Kanglong Liu Riccardo Moratto |
author_facet | Zhongliang Wang Kanglong Liu Riccardo Moratto |
author_sort | Zhongliang Wang |
collection | DOAJ |
description | The chairman’s statement of the corporate annual report plays an important role in informing the decision-making of investors. Thus, it is often targeted at an international audience. The present study compares the syntactic complexity of translated chairman’s statements (Chinese to English) and non-translated ones (English), to determine the role that translation plays in conveying the chairman’s message. The results show that translated chairman’s statements are significantly simpler in subordination as well as overall sentence complexity, using fewer verbal phrases and T-units than the non-translated ones. However, translated chairman’s statements have longer length of production units, use more coordinate phrases and
complex nominals than their non-translated counterparts. The findings indicate that simplification exists in half of the 14 syntactic complexity measures, providing some evidence for the simplification universal. They also reveal that in addition to translation universals, social factors also affect the complexity level of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements. The findings of the present study contribute to
a systematic understanding of syntactic features of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements, enrich the present knowledge of translation universals and provide pedagogical implications for translation teaching and training in the context of Chinese-English translation. |
first_indexed | 2024-04-10T06:30:07Z |
format | Article |
id | doaj.art-ea7845f308f3489db675b17b07dc1f7c |
institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
issn | 1836-9324 |
language | English |
last_indexed | 2024-04-10T06:30:07Z |
publishDate | 2023-02-01 |
publisher | Western Sydney University |
record_format | Article |
series | Translation and Interpreting : the International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research |
spelling | doaj.art-ea7845f308f3489db675b17b07dc1f7c2023-03-01T11:07:38ZengWestern Sydney UniversityTranslation and Interpreting : the International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research1836-93242023-02-0115113515110.12807/ti.115201.2023.a07A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statementsZhongliang Wang0Kanglong Liu1Riccardo Moratto2Sun Yat-sen UniversityThe Hong Kong Polytechnic UniversityShanghai International Studies UniversityThe chairman’s statement of the corporate annual report plays an important role in informing the decision-making of investors. Thus, it is often targeted at an international audience. The present study compares the syntactic complexity of translated chairman’s statements (Chinese to English) and non-translated ones (English), to determine the role that translation plays in conveying the chairman’s message. The results show that translated chairman’s statements are significantly simpler in subordination as well as overall sentence complexity, using fewer verbal phrases and T-units than the non-translated ones. However, translated chairman’s statements have longer length of production units, use more coordinate phrases and complex nominals than their non-translated counterparts. The findings indicate that simplification exists in half of the 14 syntactic complexity measures, providing some evidence for the simplification universal. They also reveal that in addition to translation universals, social factors also affect the complexity level of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements. The findings of the present study contribute to a systematic understanding of syntactic features of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements, enrich the present knowledge of translation universals and provide pedagogical implications for translation teaching and training in the context of Chinese-English translation. http://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/1667/431chairman’s statement; syntactic complexity; translation universals; simplification; corpus-based translation studies |
spellingShingle | Zhongliang Wang Kanglong Liu Riccardo Moratto A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements Translation and Interpreting : the International Journal of Translation and Interpreting Research chairman’s statement; syntactic complexity; translation universals; simplification; corpus-based translation studies |
title | A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements |
title_full | A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements |
title_fullStr | A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements |
title_full_unstemmed | A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements |
title_short | A corpus-based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non-translated chairman’s statements |
title_sort | corpus based study of syntactic complexity of translated and non translated chairman s statements |
topic | chairman’s statement; syntactic complexity; translation universals; simplification; corpus-based translation studies |
url | http://www.trans-int.org/index.php/transint/article/view/1667/431 |
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