From modal particles to point of view

Abstract

The present paper shows a useful application of corpus methodologies to the genre of literary texts in translation with the aim of discovering attitude in translations and how a translator’s attitude influences her or his translation. The study is based on an English–German parallel corpus consisting of the original source text and two German translations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Beautiful and Damned (1922), one by Hans-Christian Oeser (1998) and the other by Renate Orth-Guttmann (also 1998). An analytical framework will be developed that integrates, among other things, narrative point of view, speech and thought presentation and modal particles. Given that the main function of modal particles is to express the attitude of the speaker/writer towards an utterance or the addressee, they can be revealing of the translator’s attitude towards readers, the characters in the novel, etc. Thus, I investigate the attitude that speakers/voices reveal in the translations, how these attitudes are different from those in the original English text, how these differences reveal the translator’s attitude towards the characters and how this in turn influences the relationship between the characters in the novel and the readers of the translations. I conclude that the two translators differ in their views to an extent that affects the macro level of the novel and consequently has the potential to influence the reader’s attitude.