Lexical Bundles in Source vs. Target Texts: A Corpus-Driven Study of Translation Shifts in English and Urdu Newspaper Articles

Abstract

Lexical Bundles (LBs) are high-frequency multi-word sequences serving key functional roles in discourse, and Translational Studies (TS) examines how these units transfer across languages. Many studies have conducted research on the linguistic properties of formulaic language and general translation shifts, but limited attention is given to the unique challenges of translating high-frequency LBs between languages that exhibit a significant typological distance, such as the SVO structure of English and the SOV structure of Urdu. Therefore, the current study investigates the specific shifts and strategies employed in the English-to-Urdu translation of four-word lexical bundles in journalistic discourse. The study employs a qualitative, comparative corpus-based methodology to analyze functional, structural, and translational shifts between the English source texts and the Urdu target texts. The findings reveal a consistent pattern of “de-bundling” in Urdu translations, where fixed English bundles are often rendered as dispersed or paraphrased expressions due to typological differences between English (SVO, prepositional) and Urdu (SOV, postpositional). The study highlights the dominance of paraphrase, replacement, and omission strategies, underscoring the need for translators to prioritize functional equivalence over structural fidelity. These insights contribute to translation pedagogy and theory by emphasizing the system-bound nature of lexical bundles and the importance of register-sensitive, typology-aware translation strategies.