Onko suomen kielen ymmärtämisemme ”vajaantunut”? U-johdosten käyttö alkuperäissuomessa ja käännössuomessa

Författare

• Taina Pitkänen Tampereen yliopisto

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.61200/mikael.129645

Nyckelord:

käännössuomi, alkuperäissuomi, yksipersoonainen ja monipersoonainen passiivi, johdokset

Abstract

This article explores translation from the perspective of language change and the role of foreign influence in translated texts. The focus of this analysis is on a specific syntactic structure that seems to be increasingly used in Finnish, the derivational passive formed with the infix U (kääntää > kääntyy). It is a multipersonal passive form resembling the passive used in Indo-European languages. Previous studies (e.g. Eskola 2002) suggest that translators tend to reflect source text structures. The aim of this study is, therefore, to determine whether the influence of the source language, English, could explain the increase of the derivational passives in Finnish, and whether this potential influence is evident in translated texts in particular. The data consist of verbatim reports of the proceedings of the European Parliament translated from English into Finnish, and proceedings of the Finnish Parliament representing original Finnish. The results show marked differences between the use the derivational passive in translated and original Finnish, but contrary to the initial hypothesis, the derivational passive more frequently occurs in the original Finnish texts. Since the derivational passive is rare, the lack of this structure in translations can be interpreted as a sign of conventionalisation, which has been suggested to be one universal feature of translated language (e.g. Jantunen 2004).