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Appraisal in Translation (VALTRAD)

Appraisal in Translation (VALTRAD)
REFERENCE: FFI-2013-42751-P

General aim of the ValTrad project

The general goal of the ValTrad Project is to study appraisal and its translation in two distinct fields, namely literary translation and legal and economy translation, to compare the translation strategies that are applied in each field, and to contrast the types of phenomena inscribing appraisal in different languages and genres.

In the framework of systemic-functional linguistics, appraisal is a resource to communicate interpersonal meanings, and is influenced by power and solidarity relations between participants. Attitude, engagement and graduation are subsystems of appraisal in turn comprising more specific categories. The interpersonal meta-function is found freely in literary texts, but it is also present in legal and economy texts.

This research project is motivated by the need to gain in-depth knowledge of the translator's intervention regarding appraisal, as it is essential for the interpretation of the text's meaning and the author's communicative intention. Appraisal theory offers a methodological advantage, namely its integrated approach to characterising the author's stance not only towards the material he is communicating but also towards his reader.

 

Specific aims of the ValTrad project

The project has five specific goals: (1) To propose and to practice a model of stylistics for literary translation that incorporates appraisal theory in order to analyze authorial stance and the construction of different points of view. (2) To propose and to practice a model of stylistics for legal and economy translation that incorporates appraisal theory so as to account for appraisal meanings in texts that are a priori objective and impartial. (3) To compare the inscription of appraisal and the tendencies found in its translation in two distinct fields (literary vs legal/economy translation), to identify categories of appraisal as well as linguistic resources and to relate them with genre and rhetorical purpose. (4) To contrast resources for the inscription of appraisal in different languages and writing conventions such as lexical resources, including the effect of semantic prosodies, intensity and intensification, modal expressions and forms of speaker presence. (5) To annotate a subset of the texts with the ontology of appraisal.

It is to be expected that the application of appraisal theory to the study of translations in various language combinations (English, French, German, Spanish, Catalan and Croatian) will make a meaningful contribution to the theoretical and methodological development of both translation studies and appraisal theory.

Principal researchers

Anna Espunya Prat
.

Researchers

Montserrat Cunillera
Cristina Gelpí
Victòria Alsina
Anita Pavic Pintarnic
Maria Wirf Naro

Emanuela Arzeo

This project has been funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Finance.

REFERENCE: FFI2013-42751-P