"In-between Hypothesis"—A novel proposition on the feature of translational language:A quantitative study based on dependency grammar
Translational language,as a language variant,has garnered considerable attention from linguists.However,compared to the source and target languages,what overall syntactic features do translational languages exhibit in both translation directions?To address this question,this study employs the theoretical framework of dependency grammar and a quantitative analysis approach using the mean dependency distance(MDD)as a parameter and tests it in a self-built bidirectional parallel and comparable corpus.The results reveal that in both translation directions(C-E and E-C),the MDD of the translational language falls between that of the source language and the target language.Different translated texts within this range display varying degrees of deviation from the two languages.Based on these findings,we propose a new hypothesis regarding the features of translational language,termed the"In-between Hypothesis."This hypothesis suggests that the translational language demonstrates a unique in-between feature that remains consistent in different translation directions,because translators activate both the source and target language systems simultaneously during the translation process under the influence of the gravitational pull from the two distinct languages.
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