| name | chinese-prose-and-europeanization |
| kind | skill |
| status | ready |
| description | Review Chinese target prose for Europeanized distortion — defending concision, flexible syntax, and rhythmic force, matching connectors to the actual relation, and preferring concrete subjects over abstract nominalizations. Use when a Chinese target text's Europeanization is under review; translationese used as a quality proxy goes to translation-universals-and-the-third-code. |
| provenance | {"principles":["P119","P120","P149","P150"],"claims":["C00682","C00683","C00685","C00686","C00687","C00688","C00689","C00698","C00699","C00700"],"evidence":[],"source_anchors":[],"authored_from_digest":"6d038b21f292de14fe958b56215d436f518a129fac7924c9f43e84b21e03289e"} |
Chinese Prose And Europeanization
Purpose
This skill reviews Chinese target prose for Europeanized distortion. It defends the normal state of Chinese — concision, flexible syntax, and rhythmic force — against needlessly Europeanized wording, lets coordinate words or phrases stand by juxtaposition with connectors matched to progression, contrast, or adjustment, treats established idioms as live resources rather than decorative or wordy substitutes, and prefers concrete subjects and event clauses over abstract nominalized ones. Scope caveat: attributive/possessive 的-stacking and 被-passive overuse are also classic Europeanization symptoms, but they fall outside this skill's distilled principle set (P119, P120, P149, P150) — flag them separately rather than folding them into these findings.
When to use
- Ordinary Chinese prose has been made needlessly wordy or rigid by Europeanized wording at the expense of concision and rhythmic force.
- Coordinate Chinese words or phrases have been over-connected, or a connector does not match the intended progression, contrast, or adjustment.
- An established Chinese idiom has been flattened into wordy paraphrase or used as a decorative substitute for thought.
- An abstract, nominalized subject drawn from English syntax should be revised toward a concrete subject, person, or event clause.
Procedure
- For ordinary Chinese prose, preserve concision, flexible syntax, and rhythmic force; resist Europeanized wording when it makes the sentence needlessly complex or stiff (P119).
- Let coordinate Chinese words or phrases stand by juxtaposition when natural, and choose connectors that match progression, contrast, or adjustment instead of defaulting to English-like and-linking (P120).
- Use established Chinese idioms as live resources, not as decorative substitutes for thought, and do not flatten them into wordy paraphrase when the idiom fits (P149).
- Prefer concrete subjects, people, and event clauses over abstract nominalized subjects when revising Chinese sentences influenced by English syntax (P150).
Inputs
- The Chinese target text and the English-influenced syntax, wording, or idiom handling under review.
- The reasoning offered for the decision under review: the corpus, the orientation, the brief, and any quality claim made.
Output
Per finding: flaw, principle, correction, trade-off, next step, highest-impact first. Reviews only — not the finished translation, not the publication decision.
Anti-patterns to flag
- Approving a nominalized rendering ("the improvement of the situation occurred") because it mirrors the English clause-for-clause, instead of flagging that a concrete-subject rewrite ("the situation improved") is both more natural and equally faithful (P150).
- Inserting a connector between coordinate Chinese items that already read naturally by juxtaposition, mistaking the addition for thoroughness when it actually degrades rhythm with an unneeded English-like link (P120).
- Pushing a fitting idiom toward explanatory paraphrase in the name of "precision," when the idiom is already the live, exact resource and the paraphrase is the wordier, weaker substitute (P149).
- Reading Europeanized stiffness as elevated register or rigor rather than as unnecessary complexity that costs the sentence its concision and rhythmic force (P119).
References
See ../../references/translation-quality-principles-index.md for the full principle catalogue grouped by skill, and ../../references/translation-quality-evidence-notes.md for how these principles are grounded and kept faithful to the sources.
Provenance
Derived from P119, P120, P149, P150, grounded in the distillation-only source Yu Guangzhong, On the Normal and Distorted States of Chinese. The frontmatter provenance block lists the exact principle and claim ids, which resolve into principles/principles.yaml and analysis/claims.jsonl.
