Dictionary

overtranslation en · NOUN

Etymology

From over- + translation.

Meanings

1. (countable, uncountable) The act of overtranslating.
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • 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:
   • 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:

Forms

Coordinates

undertranslation

Translations (4)

fr surtraduction (act of overtranslating) · pl przesadne tłumaczenie (act of overtranslating) · fi liikakääntäminen (act of overtranslating) · cmn 過譯 /过译 (act of overtranslating)