How Translation Shapes Modern Chinese? Corpus-Based Evidence and Theoretical Explanations from the Perspective of Language Contact

Abstract

Translation has long been recognized as a major site of language contact, yet the mechanisms through which translated texts influence the development of modern Chinese remain underexplored. Drawing on a synthesis of corpus-based translation studies over the past three decades, this paper examines how translation has shaped modern Chinese from the perspective of language contact. Evidence from parallel and comparable corpora reveals that translation-induced changes are observable at multiple linguistic levels: lexical (increased frequency and expanded functions of prepositions, adoption of new vocabulary), syntactic (longer attributive structures, more explicit clause connectors, rising dependency distances), and registeral (convergence between translated and original academic prose on some dimensions but divergence on others). Theoretically, the “shining-through” effect of source languages, the normalization tendency of translators, and the gradual replication of frequency patterns from translated to original texts explain the transmission of these features. However, the shaping effect operates within the constraints of the target language system: translation activates and enriches existing grammatical resources rather than fundamentally altering Chinese linguistic typology. The paper concludes that translation functions as a conservative yet cumulative agent of change, accelerating ongoing trends while respecting the structural boundaries and cultural preferences of modern Chinese.