Operating Norms in Translation on the Basis of Russian-Chinese Corpora: a Case of Chtoby Clauses in Russian

Abstract

On the basis of a Russian-Chinese corpus (with a focus on academic texts of social sciences and the humanities), this paper explores operational norms governing translation of чтобы clauses that are typical to the Russian language. It concludes that: 1) there are three norms in their translation into Chinese: explicitation-implicitation norms, simplification-complication norms and domesticationforeignisation norms; 2) both explicitation and implicitation norms stand out in the translation of чтобы clauses into Chinese because formalisation disparities between Russian and Chinese are more striking than those between English and Chinese; 3) as for чтобы clauses, there are more simple sentences in the target texts (TT) than in the source texts (ST); there are more complex sentences in TT than in non-translational texts (NTT) because complex sentences are prevalent in Russian while simple sentences are common in Chinese; and 4) due to the structural features of the Russian language, foreignisation norms are more obvious than domestication norms respectively in the translation of чтобы clauses into Chinese. Refs 21. Tables 8.