Constrained language: A multidimensional analysis of translated English and a non-native indigenised variety of English

Kruger, Haidee; van Rooy, Bertus

doi:10.1075/eww.37.1.02kru

Article published In: English World-Wide
Vol. 37:1 (2016) ► pp.26–57

Get fulltext from our e-platform

Download PDF

Constrained language

A multidimensional analysis of translated English and a non-native indigenised variety of English

Haidee Kruger | Macquarie University and North-West University

Bertus van Rooy | North-West University

Published online: 10 March 2016

https://doi.org/10.1075/eww.37.1.02kru

Translation and non-native indigenised varieties of English are produced in contexts where heightened constraints operate on them. Recurrent features of translated language include explicitation, normalisation or conventionalisation, simplification, and homogenisation. Similar features in non-native indigenised varieties of English include hyperclarity, anti-deletion, regularisation, simplification and register shifts. This article adopts a multidimensional approach to analyse a translation corpus and a parallel set of texts from ICE East Africa, with ICE Great Britain as control corpus. The aim is to determine whether translated and non-native indigenised varieties of English resemble each other due to shared constraints related to bilingual language production. The results demonstrate three shared sets of features between translated and non-native indigenised varieties of English: increased formality, explicitation of information through elaboration and specification, and features resulting from processing strain. The most important difference is that translated English uses more complex, compressed syntactic structures for elaboration while the non-native indigenised variety relies more on clausal structures.

Keywords: constrained language, British English, bilingualism, multidimensional analysis, translation universals, translation, contact varieties, East African English, Afrikaans, South Africa

References (42)

References

Baumgarten, Nicole, Bernd Meyer, and Demet Özçetin. 2008. “Explicitness in Translation and Interpreting: A Critical Review and Some Empirical Evidence (of an Elusive Concept)”. Across Languages and Cultures 91: 177–203.

Becher, Viktor. 2010. “Abandoning the Notion of “Translation-Inherent” Explicitation: Against a Dogma of Translation Studies”. Across Languages and Cultures 111: 1–28.

Biber, Douglas. 1988. Variation Across Speech and Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad, and Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman.

Biber, Douglas, and Bethany Gray. 2010. “Challenging Stereotypes about Academic Writing: Complexity, Elaboration, Explicitness”. Journal of English for Academic Purposes 91: 2–20.

Carl, Michael, and Barbara Dragsted. 2012. “Inside the Monitor Model: Processes of Default and Challenged Translation Production”. Translation: Corpora, Computation, Cognition. Special Issue on the Crossroads between Contrastive Linguistics, Translation Studies and Machine Translation 21: 127–145.

Chesterman, Andrew. 2004. “Hypotheses About Translation Universals”. In Gyde Hansen, Kirsten Malmkjaer, and Daniel Gile, eds. Claims, Changes and Challenges in Translation Studies: Selected Contributions from the EST Congress, Copenhagen 2001. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 1–13.

. 2014. “Translation Studies Forum: Universalism in Translation Studies”. Translation Studies 71: 82–90.

Delaere, Isabelle, Gert de Sutter, and Koen Plevoets. 2012. “Is Translated Language More Standardised than Non-Translated Language? Using Profile-Based Correspondence Analysis for Measuring Linguistic Distances between Language Varieties”. Target 241: 203–224.

Filppula, Markku, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto, eds. 2009. Vernacular Universals and Language Contact: Evidence from Varieties of English and Beyond. London: Routledge.

Grosjean, François. 2013. “Bilingualism: A Short Introduction”. In François Grosjean, and Ping Li, eds. The Psycholinguistics of Bilingualism. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 5–25.

Hansen-Schirra, Silvia. 2011. “Between Normalization and Shining-Through: Specific Properties of English-German Translations and Their Influence on the Target Language”. In Svenja Kranich, Viktor Becher, Steffen Höder, and Juliane House, eds. Multilingual Discourse Production: Diachronic and Synchronic Perspectives. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 133–162.

Hansen-Schirra, Silvia, Stella Neumann, and Erich Steiner. 2007. “Cohesive Explicitness and Explicitation in an English–German Translation Corpus”. Languages in Contrast 71: 241–265.

House, Juliane. 2008. “Beyond Intervention: Universals in Translation?” trans-kom 11: 6–19.

Jaeger, T. Florian. 2005. “Optional that Indicates Production Difficulty: Evidence from Disfluencies”. Proceedings of DiSS’05, Disfluency in Spontaneous Speech Workshop , Aix-en-Provence, France, 103–109.

Kortmann, Bernd, and Benedikt Szmrecsanyi. 2009. “World Englishes between Simplification and Complexification”. In Lucia Siebers, and Thomas Hoffmann, eds. World Englishes – Problems, Properties and Prospects: Selected Papers from the 13th IAWE Conference. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 265–285.

Kruger, Haidee, and Bertus van Rooy. 2012. “Register and the Features of Translated Language”. Across Languages and Cultures 131: 33–65.

Lanstyák, István, and Pál Heltai. 2012. “Universals in Language Contact and Translation”. Across Languages and Cultures 131: 99–121.

Malmkjær, Kirsten. 2005. “Norms and Nature in Translation Studies”. Synaps 161: 13–19.

McWhorter, John H. 2007. Language Interrupted: Signs of Non-Native Acquisition in Standard Language Grammars. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

. 2011. Linguistic Simplicity and Complexity: Why Do Languages Undress? Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.

Mesthrie, Rajend. 2006. “Anti-Deletions in an L2 Grammar: A Study of Black South African English Mesolect”. English World-Wide 271: 111–145.

Mesthrie, Rajend, and Rakesh M. Bhatt. 2008. World Englishes: The Study of New Linguistic Varieties. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Nini, A. 2014. Multidimensional Analysis Tagger 1.1 – Manual. <[URL]> (accessed September 7, 2014)

Neumann, Stella. 2014. “Cross-Linguistic Register Studies: Theoretical and Methodological Considerations”. Languages in Contrast 141: 35–57.

Olohan, Maeve, and Mona Baker. 2000. “Reporting that in Translated English: Evidence for Subconscious Processes of Explicitation?” Across Languages and Cultures 11: 141–158.

Rohdenburg, Günter. 1996. “Cognitive Complexity and Increased Grammatical Explicitness in English”. Cognitive Linguistics 71: 149–182.

Pym, Anthony. 2005. “Explaining Explicitation”. In Krisztina Károly, and Ágota Fóris, eds. New Trends in Translation Studies: In Honour of Kinga Klaudy. Budapest: Akadémiai Kiadó, 29–34.

Salkind, Neil J., ed. 2007. Encyclopaedia of Measurement and Statistics. London: SAGE.

Schneider, Edgar. 2007. Postcolonial English: Varieties Around the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Szmrecsanyi, Benedikt, and Bernd Kortmann. 2009. “Vernacular Universals and Angloversals in a Typological Perspective”. In Markku Filppula, Juhani Klemola, and Heli Paulasto, eds. Vernacular Universals and Language Contact: Evidence from Varieties of English and Beyond. New York: Routledge, 33–53.

Statsoft Inc. 2013. Statistica (data analysis software system), version 12. <[URL]>

Teich, Elke. 2003. Cross-Linguistic Variation in System and Text: A Methodology for the Investigation of Translations and Comparable Texts. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Tirkkonen-Condit, Sonja. 2004. “Unique Items – Over- or Under-Represented in Translated Language?” In Anna Mauranen, and Pekka Kujamäki, eds. Translation Universals – Do They Exist? Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 176–184.

. 2005. “The Monitor Model Revisited: Evidence from Process Research”. Meta 501: 405–413.

Toutanova, Kristina, Dan Klein, Christopher D. Manning, and Yoram Singer. 2003. “Feature-rich Part-of-Speech Tagging with a Cyclic Dependency Network”. In Proceedings of the 2003 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics on Human Language Technology, Volume1. Association for Computational Linguistics, 173–180.

Toury, Gideon. 2012. Descriptive Translation Studies – And Beyond (revised edition). Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

Trudgill, Peter. 2001. “Contact and Simplification: Historical Baggage and Directionality in Linguistic Change”. Linguistic Typology 51: 371–374.

Van Rooy, Bertus, Lize Terblanche, Christoph Haase, and Joseph Schmied. 2010. “Register Differentiation in East African English: A Multidimensional Study”. English World-Wide 311: 311–349.

Williams, Jessica. 1987. “Non-Native Varieties of English: A Special Case of Language Acquisition”. English World-Wide 81: 161–199.

Xiao, Richard. 2009. “Multidimensional Analysis and the Study of World Englishes”. World Englishes 281: 421–450.

Zanettin, Federico. 2012. Translation-Driven Corpora. Manchester: St Jerome.

Cited by (74)

Cited by 74 other publications

Order by:

Chen, Jiaxin, Yao Yao & Dechao Li

2025. More Complex Constrained Language? An Investigation on Nominal Complexity in Constrained Spoken English Varieties of ESL, EFL, and Interpreted English. International Journal of Applied Linguistics 35:3 ► pp. 1482 ff.

Fuchs, Robert

2025. Influencing People Around the Globe. In Manipulation, Influence and Deception, ► pp. 135 ff.

Huang, Dan Feng, Dennis Tay & Andrew K. F. Cheung

2025. Text Classification to Detect Interpretese in Bidirectional Simultaneous Interpreting: Improved TF-IDF and Stacking. IEEE Access 13 ► pp. 70640 ff.

Huang, Yueyue, Hao Yin & Dechao Li

2025. Stance taking through that-clauses in research article abstracts: Cross-cultural and cross-disciplinary practices in translated and non-translated English. English for Specific Purposes 80 ► pp. 1 ff.

Hui, Ruby Ka Yee & Dechao Li

2025. Re-examining Explicitation Hypothesis in Translation: A Study of Character Name Repetition in Ten Chinese Versions of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland . SAGE Open 15:2

Kelbert, Eugenia

2025. Translation as Different: A View from Linguistic Relativity. Critical Inquiry 51:4 ► pp. 718 ff.

Kwok, Ho Ling, Yining Shi, Han Xu, Dechao Li & Kanglong Liu

2025. GenAI as a translation assistant? A corpus-based study on lexical and syntactic complexity of GPT-post-edited learner translation. System 130 ► pp. 103618 ff.

Liu, Zhaoxia

2025. The effects of linguistic proximity on dependency distance and dependency direction of translated English from 35 languages. Lingua 326 ► pp. 104020 ff.

Marín García, Álvaro

2025. Finding synergies in Cognitive Translation and Interpreting Studies via task design. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 37:2 ► pp. 271 ff.

Shen, Lin

2025. Constrained communication of motion events. Review of Cognitive Linguistics

Shen, Lin & Haidee Kotze

2025. Linguistic indicators differentiating translated and untranslated diplomatic discourse: A diachronic analysis of the United Nations General Debate (1946–2022). Lingua 320 ► pp. 103933 ff.

Su, Ziqiao, Han Xu & Kanglong Liu

2025. Linguistic Compression and Cognitive Load: A Quantitative Study of the Menzerath–Altmann Law in Interpreted, L2 and Native English Speech. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 32:3 ► pp. 223 ff.

Tang, Chuanhong, Danfeng Huang & Andrew K. F. Cheung

2025. Cognitive constraints in bilingual processing—an entropy-based discrimination between translation and second language production. Frontiers in Psychology 16

van Rooy, Bertus

2025. Corpus Linguistics and World Englishes. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, ► pp. 1 ff.

van Rooy, Bertus

2025. Black South African English. In The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of World Englishes, ► pp. 1 ff.

Zhang, Wenkang, Rui Xie, Yao Yao & Dechao Li

2025. Lexico‐Syntactic Complexity in Machine Interpreting: A Corpus‐Based Comparison With Human Interpreting and Translation. International Journal of Applied Linguistics

张, 汝莹

2025. Quantitative Linguistic Comparison between Direct Translation and Relay Translation of Chinese Classics: “Translation Universals” Revisited. Modern Linguistics 13:04 ► pp. 896 ff.

张, 雨洁

2025. A Comparative Study of Syntactic Features between Human Translations and Machine Translations from a Dependency Grammar Perspective—A Case Study of Academic Texts. Modern Linguistics 13:07 ► pp. 491 ff.

Chou, Isabelle & Kanglong Liu

2024. Style in speech and narration of two English translations of Hongloumeng . Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 36:1 ► pp. 76 ff.

Chou, Isabelle, Zhangyujie Xiang & Kanglong Liu

2024. Unravelling the stylistic nuances: a comparative multidimensional analysis of amateur and professional translations of Legends of the Condor Heroes. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:1

Fu, Rongbo & Jiaqi Tan

2024. Hedges in interpreted and non-interpreted English: A cross-modal, corpus-based study. Interpreting and Society 4:1 ► pp. 44 ff.

Gilquin, Gaëtanelle

2024. Lexical use in spoken New Englishes and Learner Englishes. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 120 ff.

Gilquin, Gaëtanelle & Lea Meriläinen

2024. Constrained communication in EFL and ESL. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 45:2 ► pp. 196 ff.

Gu, Chonglong

2024. One-third of a century on: the state of the art, pitfalls, and the way ahead relating to digital humanities approaches to translation and interpreting studies. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 39:1 ► pp. 154 ff.

Ivaska, Ilmari, Silvia Bernardini & Adriano Ferraresi

2024. The complex case of constrained communication. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 191 ff.

Kotze, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy

2024. Introduction. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 1 ff.

Neumann, Stella, Elma Kerz & Arndt Heilmann

2024. Comparing contact effects in translation and second language writing. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 223 ff.

Niu, Jiang & Yue Jiang

2024. Does simplification hold true for machine translations? A corpus-based analysis of lexical diversity in text varieties across genres. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:1

Penha-Marion, Laura, Gaëtanelle Gilquin & Marie-Aude Lefer

2024. The effect of directionality on lexico‑syntactic simplification in French><English student translation. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 153 ff.

Rosenbach, Anette & Johanita Kirsten

2024. Afrikaans influence on genitive variation in South African English?. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 29 ff.

Sheng, Dandan & Xin Li

2024. A multi-dimensional analysis of interpreted and non-interpreted English discourses at Chinese and American government press conferences. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 11:1

van Rooy, Bertus & Haidee Kotze

2024. Conclusion. In Constraints on Language Variation and Change in Complex Multilingual Contact Settings [Contact Language Library, 60], ► pp. 255 ff.

Wang, Zhongliang & Kanglong Liu

2024. Linguistic Variations Between Translated and Non-Translated English Chairman’s Statements in Corporate Annual Reports: A Multidimensional Analysis. Sage Open 14:2

Xu, Cui & Dechao Li

2024. More spoken or more translated?. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 36:3 ► pp. 445 ff.

Dayter, Daria, Miriam A. Locher & Thomas C. Messerli

2023. Pragmatics in Translation,

Fan, Lu & Yue Jiang

2023. Probability distribution of dependency distance and dependency type in translational language. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 10:1

Ferraresi, Adriano & Silvia Bernardini

2023. Comparing collocations in translated and learner language. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 9:1 ► pp. 125 ff.

Granger, Sylviane & Marie-Aude Lefer

2023. Learner translation corpora. International Journal of Learner Corpus Research 9:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Kwok, Ho Ling, Sara Laviosa & Kanglong Liu

2023. Lexical simplification in learner translation: A corpus-based approach. Research in Corpus Linguistics 11:2 ► pp. 103 ff.

Liu, Jianwen & Linqing Zhu

2023. Review: Granger and Lefer (eds). 2022. Extending the Scope of Corpus-Based Translation Studies. Corpora 18:3 ► pp. 387 ff.

Liu, Xinyuan, Kanglong Liu & Andrew K. F. Cheung

2023. A Corpus-Assisted Study of Nominalization in Translated and Non-translated Judgments. In New Advances in Legal Translation and Interpreting [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 79 ff.

Liu, Yi, Andrew K.F. Cheung & Kanglong Liu

2023. Syntactic complexity of interpreted, L2 and L1 speech: A constrained language perspective. Lingua 286 ► pp. 103509 ff.

Maekelberghe, Charlotte & Isabelle Delaere

2023. Functional hybridity in translation. Languages in Contrast 23:2 ► pp. 252 ff.

Qin, Xiaowan & Keming Peng

2023. Book Review. International Journal of Translation, Interpretation, and Applied Linguistics 5:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Song, Tianyi & Libo Huang

2023. Review of Extending the Scope of Corpus-Based Translation Studies. Corpus Pragmatics 7:1 ► pp. 41 ff.

Xu, Han & Kanglong Liu

2023. Syntactic simplification in interpreted English: Dependency distance and direction measures. Lingua 294 ► pp. 103607 ff.

Zhang, Xiaomin, Haidee Kotze & Jing Fang

2023. Hyper-conventional, unconventional, or “just right”? The interplay of normalisation and cross-linguistic influence in the use of modal particles in translated Chinese children’s literature. Meta 67:2 ► pp. 384 ff.

杜, 海琪

2023. A Corpus-Based Study of the Lexical Features in Chinese-English Interpreting of the Regular Press Conference of the Ministry of National Defense. Modern Linguistics 11:10 ► pp. 4265 ff.

Grabowski, Łukasz

2022. Provoke or encourage improvements? On semantic prosody in English-to-Polish translation. Perspectives 30:1 ► pp. 120 ff.

Gumul, Ewa & Magdalena Bartłomiejczyk

2022. Interpreters’ explicitating styles. Interpreting. International Journal of Research and Practice in Interpreting 24:2 ► pp. 163 ff.

Hu, Yukai, Wenjing Zhang & Yike Gao

2022. The Register Variation in Translated Epidemic Prevention Manuals as Emergency Language Services. International Journal of Translation, Interpretation, and Applied Linguistics 4:2 ► pp. 1 ff.

Jiang, Yue & Ruimin Ma

2022. Does Menzerath–Altmann Law Hold True for Translational Language: Evidence from Translated English Literary Texts. Journal of Quantitative Linguistics 29:1 ► pp. 37 ff.

Kajzer-Wietrzny, Marta

2022. An intermodal approach to cohesion in constrained and unconstrained language. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 34:1 ► pp. 130 ff.

Laporte, Samantha & Bert Cappelle

2022. Killing two burdens with one stone. Pedagogical Linguistics 3:2 ► pp. 150 ff.

Maurais, Jean

2021. Language Contact, Cognition, and Cross-Linguistic Influence in the Greek Pentateuch. Journal for the Study of Judaism 53:3 ► pp. 317 ff.

Reynaert, Ryan, Lieve Macken, Arda Tezcan & Gert De Sutter

2021. Building a New-Generation Corpus for Empirical Translation Studies: The Dutch Parallel Corpus 2.0. In New Perspectives on Corpus Translation Studies [New Frontiers in Translation Studies, ], ► pp. 75 ff.

Ustaszewski, Michael

2021. Towards a machine learning approach to the analysis of indirect translation. Translation Studies 14:3 ► pp. 313 ff.

De Sutter, Gert & Marie-Aude Lefer

2020. On the need for a new research agenda for corpus-based translation studies: a multi-methodological, multifactorial and interdisciplinary approach. Perspectives 28:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Ivaska, Ilmari & Silvia Bernardini

2020. Constrained language use in Finnish: A corpus-driven approach. Nordic Journal of Linguistics 43:1 ► pp. 33 ff.

Kajzer-Wietrzny, Marta & Ilmari Ivaska

2020. A Multivariate Approach to Lexical Diversity in Constrained Language. Across Languages and Cultures 21:2 ► pp. 169 ff.

Pang, Shuangzi & Kefei Wang

2020. Language contact through translation. Target. International Journal of Translation Studies 32:3 ► pp. 420 ff.

Pang, Shuangzi & Kefei Wang

2023. Sketching the changing patterns in kaleidoscopes: New developments in corpus-based studies of translation features (2001–2021). Research in Corpus Linguistics 11:2 ► pp. 79 ff.

Pang, Shuangzi & Kefei Wang

2025. What transcends “translation universals” across time?. Babel. Revue internationale de la traduction / International Journal of Translation / Revista Internacional de Traducción 71:4 ► pp. 449 ff.

Seoane, Elena & Cristina Suárez-Gómez

2020. Elaboration, compression and explicitness across sub-registers of popular and academic writing in Hong Kong English. Register Studies 2:2 ► pp. 275 ff.

Zhang, Xiaomin, Haidee Kotze (Kruger) & Jing Fang

2020. Explicitation in children’s literature translated from English to Chinese: a corpus-based study of personal pronouns. Perspectives 28:5 ► pp. 717 ff.

Biber, Douglas & Susan Conrad

2019. Register, Genre, and Style,

Ferraresi, Adriano, Silvia Bernardini, Maja Miličević Petrović & Marie-Aude Lefer

2019. Simplified or not Simplified? The Different Guises of Mediated English at the European Parliament. Meta 63:3 ► pp. 717 ff.

Kruger, Haidee

2019. That Again: A Multivariate Analysis of the Factors Conditioning Syntactic Explicitness in Translated English. Across Languages and Cultures 20:1 ► pp. 1 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Gert De Sutter

2018. Alternations in contact and non-contact varieties. Translation, Cognition & Behavior 1:2 ► pp. 251 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy

2018. Register variation in written contact varieties of English. English World-Wide. A Journal of Varieties of English 39:2 ► pp. 214 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Bertus van Rooy

2016. Syntactic and pragmatic transfer effects in reported-speech constructions in three contact varieties of English influenced by Afrikaans. Language Sciences 56 ► pp. 118 ff.

Kruger, Haidee & Adam Smith

2018. Colloquialization versus Densification in Australian English: A Multidimensional Analysis of the Australian Diachronic Hansard Corpus (ADHC). Australian Journal of Linguistics 38:3 ► pp. 293 ff.

Albl-Mikasa, Michaela, Giovanna Fontana, Laura Maria Fuchs, Lena Meret Stüdeli & Aline Zaugg

2017. Professional translations of non-native English: ‘before and after’ texts from the European Parliament’s Editing Unit. The Translator 23:4 ► pp. 371 ff.

[no author supplied]

2025. Persuasion and (New) Contexts of Use. In Manipulation, Influence and Deception, ► pp. 43 ff.

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 9 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.