Contrastive Analysis of Utterance Modality in Modal Verbs in a Detective Story to Provide a Homologous English > Spanish Translation
Keywords:
modality, translation, modal verbsAbstract
Traditionally, modality has been an object of study of logic as well as of language sciences, and within the latter, it is highly relevant in translation studies. First, we need to bear in mind that not all languages have a modal system, but this does not mean that they lack the means to express modality. In fact, speakers count on a variety of modal expressions, such as verb-adverb modal collocations (Hoye, 1997), modal lexical verbs (Matthews, 1991), semi-modals and emerging modals (Krug, 2000; Mitchell, 2003; Hoye, 2005b), among other combinations and names. However, considering the variety of options languages provide us with, this research is aimed at studying only one element expressing modality in English, namely, modal auxiliary verbs. Our interest in this specific category results from the significant difference in number and variety of modal verbs in English when compared to those available in Spanish, and also from the frequently-encountered cases of ambiguity that challenge translation professionals (Rosa Rabadán, 2006). Moreover, in those cases that do not seem troublesome -in terms of differences in formal resources available in both languages,- it is important to reconsider each occurrence in context when translating because the semantic load of modal verbs in the source text in English does not always coincide with that of the equivalents suggested by tools like dictionaries (Rabadán, 2006). In fact, it is widely known that poder and deber seem to have direct equivalents in English, namely can and must, to express possibility and obligation respectively, but on many occasions, this is not the case. All in all, this Master’s thesis project aims to deal with the problem of translating modal verbs from English into Spanish through a contrastive analysis of fragments of a literary work in order to describe some options translators can resort to so as to solve the problem explained above.
Downloads
References
Abdul-Fatttah, H. (2011). A Formal-Functional Analysis of the English Modal Auxiliaries. Jordan Journal of Modern Languages and Literature, 3(1), 39-63.
Bally, C. (1942). Syntaxe de la modalité explicite. En Société Genoveise de Linguistique (Ed.), Cahiers de Ferdinand de Saussure (pp. 3-13). Ginebra, Suiza: Librairie Droz.
Ferrari, L. (2009). Marcadores de modalidad epistémica y evidencial en el análisis de las conclusiones de artículos de investigación de disciplinas distintas. Revista latinoamericana de estudios del discurso, 9 (2), 5-23.
Hoye, L.F. (1997). Adverbs and Modality in English. Londres, Inglaterra/Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Longman.
Hoye, L.F. (2005a). ‘May Think That; I Couldn’t Possibly Comment!’ Modality Studies: Contemporary Research and Future Directions. Part I. Journal of Pragmatics, 37(8), 1295-1321.
Hoye, L.F. (2005b). ‘You May Think That; I Couldn’t Possibly Comment!’ Modality Studies: Contemporary Research and Future Directions. Part II. Journal of Pragmatics 37(9), 1481-1506.
Hurtado Albir, A. (2001). Traducción y traductología. Introducción a la traductología. Madrid, España: Cátedra.
Krug, M. (2000). Emerging English Modals: A Corpus-Based Study of Grammaticalization. Berlín, Alemania/Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Mouton de Gruyter.
Maingueneau, D. (1980). Introducción a los métodos de análisis del discurso. Buenos Aires, Argentina: Hachette.
Matthews, R. (1991). Words and Worlds: On the Linguistic Analysis of Modality. Berlín, Alemania: Peter Lang.
Miranda de Torres, S. (1997). Los verbos modales en inglés, francés y español. Estudio contrastivo. (Tesis inédita de Especialización Lingüística). Escuela Superior de Lenguas, Córdoba, Argentina.
Mitchell, K. (2003). “Had better and might as well: On the margins of modality” en Modality in Contemporary English, Roberta Facchinetti, Frank Palmer & Manfred Krug (eds.), 129-150. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110895339.129
Nord, Christiane (2009). El funcionalismo en la enseñanza de traducción (en línea) Mutatis Mutandis, 2 (2), 209-243. Recuperado de http://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/mutatismutandis/article/viewFile/ 2397/2080.
Palmer, F.R. (1979). Modality and the English Modals. Londres, Inglaterra/Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Longman.
Palmer, F.R. (1986). Mood and Modality. Cambridge, Inglaterra: Cambridge University Press.
Palmer, F.R. (1990). Modality and the English Modals .2da edición. Londres, Inglaterra/Nueva York, Estados Unidos: Longman.
Palmer, F.R. (2001). Mood and Modality. 2da edición. Cambridge, Inglaterra: Cambridge University
Press.
Rabadán, R. (2006). Modality and modal verbs in contrast. Mapping out a translation(ally) relevant approach English-Spanish. Languages in Contrast, 6(2), 261-306.
Real Academia Española. (2009) Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Manual. Madrid, España: Espasa.
Van Dover, J. K. (2005). We must have certainty. Four essays on the detective story. Cranbury, Estados Unidos: Rosemont Publishing & Printing Corp.
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Aquellos autores que deseen publicar en Nueva ReCIT aceptan los siguientes términos:
• Los autores conservarán sus derechos sobre el texto entregado y garantizarán a la revista el derecho de primera publicación de su obra. Dicho derecho estará simultáneamente sujeto a la licencia Creative Commons, la cual permite que terceros compartan la obra siempre que
se mencione al autor y al lugar de la primera publicación.
• Los autores realizan una cesión de derechos no exclusivos, lo que implica que la publicación de los artículos en Nueva ReCIT no impide al autor publicar su texto, a posteriori, en otras revistas u órganos editoriales; asimismo, los autores autorizan que el trabajo sea depositado en repositorios institucionales, como el Portal de Revistas de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba o el Repositorio Digital de la Universidad Nacional de Córdoba.
