Japanese texts translated from English tend to contain more
ko-type demonstratives (roughly
equivalent to English “this”) and
so-type demonstratives (roughly, “that,” “the,” or “it”) than
is typical for texts of similar nature originally written in Japanese. This is often true of
professionally translated, apparently redundancy-free texts, as well as those produced by
inexperienced translators. “A Descriptive Study of Japanese Demonstratives in Texts
Translated from English” (Katori 2016) confirmed this tendency and sought to identify some
of the reasons for the increased use of demonstratives. This paper attempts to examine
whether the use of
ko-type and
so-type demonstratives in translated texts can be reduced, suggests a few of their uses for possible omission and discusses the effects such omission might have on the impression of the text.
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