Overtranslation

Mistaking a servitude for an option can lead to overtranslation.

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.

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.

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’.