Preview

Nauchnyi dialog

Advanced search

Translation of Modal Verbs in Media Texts: Corpus-Based Approach

https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2023-12-4-27-48

Abstract

The main modal verbs of the English language (can, could, may, must, should, need, will, would) in media texts have been studied, namely the ways of their translation into Russian. Using the method of continuous sampling, 50 concordances were selected and analyzed for each of the 8 modal verbs. The material of the study was examples in the field of journalism from the National Corpus of the Russian Language, namely, a parallel subcorpus composed of original texts and their translations. Additionally, a ranking was carried out according to the frequency of modal verbs in the parallel corpus NKRYA (language pair Russian-English) and the English web corpus WebCorp. When comparing, the absolute frequencies of modal verbs were used, since the first corpus is static, and the second is dynamic (replenished daily). The need to supplement the parallel corpus was revealed, since the sorting results were not identical. Based on the analysis of translation transformations, the following was found: literal translation, grammatical substitutions and omission were most often used in the translation of modal verbs in media texts. It has been established that impersonal constructions were often used, and modality was transmitted using linguistic means of another level.

About the Authors

Ya. A. Volkova
RUDN University
Russian Federation

Yana A. Volkova - Doctor of Philology, Associate Professor, Department of Theory and Practice of Foreign Languages, Institute of Foreign Languages.

Moscow



A. S. Korzin
RUDN University
Russian Federation

Andrey S. Korzin - Assistant Lecturer, Department of Foreign Languages, Academy of Engineering.

Moscow



A. D. Uryupina
RUDN University
Russian Federation

Anna D. Uryupina - Further Education Teacher Department of Foreign Languages, Academy of Engineering.

Moscow



References

1. NKRYa — (= Natsionalnyy korpus russkogo yazyka) Russian National Corpus. Available at: http://ruscorpora.ru (accessed 28.01.2023). (In Russ.).

2. WebCorp. Available at: https://www.webcorp.org.uk/live/index.jsp (accessed 28.01.2023).

3. Abdulmanova, A. H., Kulikova M. N., Lekomtseva, I. A. (2021). Corpus research methods in solving translation problems. Philological sciences. Questions of theory and practice, 11: 3429—3435. DOI: 10.30853/phil20210570. (In Russ.).

4. Al-Bayati Yassin Sharif Said. (2019). The specifics of the types of modalities in the genre of “Business letter” in the cross-cultural aspect (based on the material of English-language business communication). Philological Sciences. Questions of theory and practice, 7: 162—166. DOI: 10.30853/filnauki.2019.7.34. (In Russ.).

5. An Yang, Zheng Shu-yuan, Ge Guang-chun. (2015). Epistemic modality in English-medium medical research articles: A systemic functional perspective. English for Specific Purposes, 38: 1—10. DOI: 10.1016/j.esp.2014.10.005.

6. Blerina, T. (2012). Morphological means of expressing the modality of possibility in English, Albanian and Russian. Bulletin of the RUDN. Series: Linguistics, 3: 31—40. (In Russ.).

7. Blinkova, L. M. (2020). Methods of transmission of modality in the translation of texts. In: Linguistics, linguodidactics, linguoculturology: topical issues and prospects of development. Minsk: Belarusian State University. 361—365. (In Russ.).

8. Bybee, J. L., Perkins, R. D., Pagliuca, W. (1994). The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 398 p. ISBN 978-0226086651.

9. Carter, R., McCarthy, M., Mark, G., O’Keeffe, A. (2016). English grammar Today: An A-Z of Spoken and Written Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 645 p. ISBN 1316624064.

10. Dash, N. S., Selvaraj, A. (2016). Generating Parallel Translation Corpora in Indian Languages: Cultivating Bilingual Texts for Cross-Lingual Fertilization. Translation Today, 10 (1): 84—118.

11. Dash, N. S., Arulmozi, S. (2018). Web Text Corpus. In: History, Features, and Typology of Language Corpora. Singapore: Springer. 125—146. ISBN 978-981-10-7457-8.

12. Davydova, A. R., Sarkisyan, M. R. (2016). Modal verbs as explicators of evaluation expression in the texts of newspaper reports. Philological sciences. Questions of theory and practice, 12 (66): in 4 hours 3: 93—97. (In Russ.).

13. Eremina, N. V., Krapivina, M. Y. (2019). Stylistic features of translation of English newspaper and journalistic texts. Bulletin of TSPU, 5 (202): 71—78. DOI: 10.23951/1609-624X-2017-5-71-78. (In Russ.).

14. Eshchenko, I. O., Rakova, K. I. (2012). Modal perspective of a polypredicative sentence with parataxis and hypotaxis. Questions of journalism, pedagogy, linguistics, 6 (125): 74—78. (In Russ.).

15. Eshchenko, I. O., Boychuk, I. V., Lukyanova, E. V., Strakhova, K. A. (2020). Transformations of the modal perspective of a polypredicative sentence. A modern scientist, 4: 241—245. (In Russ.).

16. Gitailo, E. N. (2015). The category of modality and features of the translation of modal verbs on the material of English journalistic literature. Lingua mobilis, 2 (53): 66—72. (In Russ.).

17. Jaime, A. A., Pérez-Guillot, C. (2015). Comparison Analysis of Modal Auxiliary Verbs in Technical and General English. Procedia — Social and Behavioral Sciences, 212: 292—297. DOI: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.11.375.

18. Jinghua Zhang. (2019). A Semantic Approach to the English Modality. Journal of Language Teaching and Research, 10: 879—885. DOI: 10.17507/jltr.1004.28.

19. Kalyanova, L. M. (2015). Means of expressing modality in the English language. Eurasian Union of Scientists, 7—5 (16): 37—38 (In Russ.).

20. Kochneva, M. G. (2013). Features of the use of modal verbs in technical literature and their translation into Russian. Topical issues of modern philology and journalism, 11: 59—64. (In Russ.).

21. Komissarov, V. N. (2017). Linguistics of translation. Moscow: Librocom. 176 p. ISBN 978-5-397-05649-6. (In Russ.).

22. Kunilovskaya, M. A. (2011). Features of translated computer discourse: patterns of predicative modality transfer from English to Russian. Bulletin of ChelSU, 33: 82—85. (In Russ.).

23. Lebedeva, I. S., Romanova, I. D. (2018). Modal verbs as a means of influence in personal and institutional discourse. Bulletin of the Moscow State Linguistic University. Humanities, 15 (810): 77—87. (In Russ.).

24. Martín de la Rosa, V., Domínguez Romero, E. (2021). Epistemic and non-epistemic modals: The key to interpreting the spirit of counter-terrorism United Nations Security Council resolutions. Journal of Pragmatics, 180: 89—101. DOI: 10.1016/j.pragma.2021.04.009.

25. Milrud, R. P., Karamnov, A. S. (2008). Approaches to the study of English modal verbs. Bulletin of TSU, 8: 174—182. (In Russ.).

26. Miriskaeva, K. Sh. (2018). Conceptualization of modality in multi-system languages (based on the verb can and its reverbalizers in Russian). PhD Diss. Pyatigorsk. 222 p. (In Russ.).

27. O’Halloran, K. (2010). How to use corpus linguistics in the study of media discourse. In: The Routledge Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. London: Routledge. 563—577. ISBN 9780415464895.

28. Paquot, M., Gries, S. T. (2020). A Practical Handbook of Corpus Linguistics. Springer: Cham. 686 p.

29. Renouf, A., Kehoe, A., Banerjee, J. (2006). WebCorp: An integrated system for web text search. Language and Computers. 47—67.

30. Rizvic-Eminovic, E., Šukalić, D. (2019). Corpus-based study of the modal verbs in the spoken and academic genres of the corpus of contemporary American English. Zbornik radova Islamskog pedagoškog fakulteta u Zenici, 18. DOI:10.51728/issn.2637-1480.2019.17.351.

31. Safonov, M. A. (2016). Problems of translation of modal meanings from English into Russian. International scientific review, 21 (31): 63—65. (In Russ.).

32. Shakurova, A. R., Artyushkov, I. V. (2014). Textual modality and its expression in journalistic style. Bulletin of Bashkir University, 4: 1396—1401. (In Russ.).

33. Solntseva, E. S. (2019). On the question of the properties of the media discourse. News of the VSPU, 8 (141): 147—153. (In Russ.).

34. Uvarova, E. A. (2015). Mediatext and media discourse: on the problem of correlation of concepts. Bulletin of the Moscow State Regional University. Series: Linguistics, 5: 47—54. (In Russ.).

35. Vdovina, M. V. (2010). Temporal characteristics of English modal verbs: problems and solutions. Bulletin of OmSU, 3: 125—131. (In Russ.).

36. Vinogradov, V. V. (1975). Studies in Russian grammar: textbook.- method. Manual. Moscow: Nauka. 559 p. (In Russ.).

37. Volchenkova, K. N. (2015). Parallel corpus as a reference database in the translator’s work. Problems and prospects of education development in Russia, 33: 32—35. (In Russ.).

38. Vysotskaya, I. V. (2019). Specifics of the category of modality in “Business letter” (based on the material of English- and German-language business communication). Philological sciences. Questions of theory and practice, 7: P. 170. (In Russ.).

39. Xiaowan Yang. (2018). A Corpus-based Study of Modal Verbs in Chinese Learners’ Academic Writing. English Language Teaching, 11 (2): 122—130. DOI: 10.5539/elt.v11n2p122.

40. Xinyu Wu, Jian Li. (2019). Corpus-Based Study of Modal Verbs in the Uniform Commercial Code of the USA. Int J Semiot Law, 32: 463—483. DOI: 10.1007/s11196-019-09620-9.

41. Yifan Zhang, Andrew K. F. Cheung (2022). A corpus-based study of modal verbs in Chinese — English governmental press conference interpreting. Front Psychol. DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1065077.

42. Yusupova, A. O. (2015). Modality in the newspaper and journalistic text. Bulletin of the Moscow State Regional University. Series: Linguistics, 4: 114—119. DOI: 10.18384/2310-712X-2015-4-114-119. (In Russ.).


Review

For citations:


Volkova Ya.A., Korzin A.S., Uryupina A.D. Translation of Modal Verbs in Media Texts: Corpus-Based Approach. Nauchnyi dialog. 2023;12(4):27-48. (In Russ.) https://doi.org/10.24224/2227-1295-2023-12-4-27-48

Views: 533


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.


ISSN 2225-756X (Print)
ISSN 2227-1295 (Online)