Standard and non-standard versions of translation.

This work considers the notion of “neutral translation” and the possibility of using it in translation studies. Neutral translation is compiled from standard versions of translation, most frequently encountered in different translations of the same text. This work demonstrates that a comparison of particular translations with a neutral translation is often more informative than a comparison with the original. Non-standard versions, excluded from the neutral translation, reveal unique features of particular translations. This case study focuses on the corpus of French translations of “Boris Godunov” (16 translations) and “Queen of Spades” (16 translations).