Kilpailevat konventiot erikoisalan lehdistötiedotteissa

When a text producer writes or translates press releases of a special field, he has to take into account conventions concerning the special field in question, press releases as a genre as well as the press language. This article contrasts the conventions of languages for special purposes with the conventions of press releases as a genre. It demonstrates that these conventions are in some cases in conflict with each other, in other words competing. On the basis of the preliminary results of the study, such competing conventions seem to be transformations between active and passive forms, transformation between single words and phrases as well as transformation between main and subordinate clauses. The aim of the study is to investigate whether the native revisers tried to increase the translations’ conformity to conventions as the translations had been made by a non-native speaker. The research material consists of 34 special-field press releases translated from English into German and Swedish.