Translating between the lines : Decoding the syntactic condensation found in nominalisations and non-finite supplementive clauses

Abstract: The aim of this study is to examine how syntactically condensed structures are translated from English to Swedish in a non-fiction text. The analysis covers nominalisations and non-finite ing- and ed-clauses functioning as adverbials. The method for analysis is mainly quantitative, but in order to discuss why certain translation strategies are favoured, a qualitative analysis is also included. The results show that both obligatory and optional structural changes occur in the target text. These changes are induced by both grammatical and preferential differences between the source and target languages. As a result, the target text is often more explicit than the source text. While the most frequent translation strategy for ing-clauses is forming finite main clauses, subordinate clauses are the most frequently used correspondences for ed-clauses. Other strategies include coordination and prepositional phrases. Explicitation occurs by adding features such as finiteness and subordinating conjunctions in the target text structures. In contrast to the translation of non-finite clauses, the most commonly used correspondence when translating nominalisations is noun phrases identical to those in the source text. The second most frequent strategy is paraphrased noun phrases. Together, these two nominal strategies cover approximately two thirds of the translations. Clausal structures, which are generally more explicit, are more than three times less frequent, which opposes the idea of verbal preference in Swedish. When clausal translations are used, however, it is mainly due to the complexity of the noun phrase in which the nominalisation occurs.