Translational language as a “third code” has been found to be different from
both source and target languages. Recent studies have proposed a number of
translation universal (TU) hypotheses which include, for example, simplification,
explicitation and normalization. This paper investigates the “source language shining through” put forward by Teich (2003). The hypothesis is that “In a translation into a given target language (TL), the translation may be oriented more towards the source language (SL), i.e. the SL shines through” (Teich 2003: 207), which has attracted little attention in translation studies. If this feature of translational language that has been reported on the basis of translated English or German can be generalized as one of translational universals, it is of vital importance to find supporting evidence from non-European languages. The evidence from genetically distinct language pairs such as English and Chinese is arguably more convincing. This study presents a detailed case study of English passive constructions and their Chinese translations based on comparable corpora and parallel corpora. This research explores a new aspect of TUs
and offers another perspective for translation studies.