Contrastive Analysis of Utterance Modality in Modal Verbs in a Detective Story to Provide a Homologous English > Spanish Translation
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 mod...
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| Formato: | Artículo revista |
| Lenguaje: | Español |
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Facultad de Lenguas
2022
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| Acceso en línea: | https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/ReCIT/article/view/37215 |
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| Sumario: | 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. |
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