An Appraisal Theory Approach to Point of View in Mansfield Park and its Translations

Abstract

In order to achieve the goals of social commentary and moral judgement pursued in her novels, Jane Austen describes and evaluates different aspects of her characters’ personalities: social attitude, intellectual qualities and moral traits (Lodge 1966). Mansfield Park (1814) is one of her novels in which this moral awareness is most acute. In order to construct a community of shared values with her readers, Austen skilfully alternates different points of view as sources of evaluation. We propose an analysis of the first chapter of Mansfield Park that addresses this dialogic dimension by focusing on the resources of engagement, the subsystem of Appraisal Theory with which speakers/writers express their commitment to the truth of a proposition and their willingness to open the negotiation space to other voices (Martin & White 2005: 97).The linguistic subtlety and complexity of Jane Austen’s writing is a challenge to translators, who must try to identify all the concurrent interpretation possibilities and reproduce them in the target language. In this article we compare the English source text with various translations into Spanish, Catalan and German. Our analysis focuses on the lexicogrammatical realisations of engagement such as verba dicendi, epistemic expressions, lexical choices with a distinct attitudinal load, and also on the development of narration – as far as that is possible in a study centering on the first chapter –, since it is often the case that narrator stance is modified as the text unfolds.We discuss fragments of narrator discourse, direct speech and indirect/free indirect speech and consider the advantages of the framework to uncover changes in the evaluative dimension of meaning that affect the readings the translations will afford in their target society, from character building to the articulation of points of view.

An integrated approach to the analysis of NRSA for translation. Mansfield Park in Spanish and German

“…Of the two Spanish translations, SPT1 displays more exuberant, oral, intensity-laden stylistic preferences; SPT2 is more restrained, writerly, literal, more compatible with a vision of NRSA where the narrator is a standardization force. As regards the German translations, the study confirms the observation in Alsina et al (2017) that GT1 significantly enhances orality in the narrator's discourse, lending this figure a more conversational tone than in the source text with the insertion of lexical elements from spoken interaction. GT2 is not so profuse in markers of orality (for example, the epistemic dimension of discourse markers is preserved with evaluative adverbs from the written register as opposed to modal particles), although colloquialisms are occasionally found, reinforcing the impression of an omniscient narrator.…”

Translating Attitudes toward Sexism in Gone Girl Novel (An Appraisal Theory Approach)

“…They clarify that the same appraisal category in source and target text produces an accurate translation and vice versa. An investigation on character constructed has revealed how characterization is reflected by the use of appraisal resource and how it is transferred into target text (Alsina, Espunya, & Naro, 2017;Khrisna et al, 2016;Sutrisno, 2017;Zhaoying, 2017).…”

Narrative Report of Speech Acts as characterization resource in Mansfield Park and its Spanish and German translations

“…The co-occurrence of endorsing and distancing formulations can be used to signal a clash in values, leading to irony (see Leech and Short, 2007: 223). In Alsina et al (2017) the evaluative opacity in Mansfield Park was accounted for by describing the narrator as simultaneously acknowledging propositions from other voices without committing him/herself to their truth and refraining from personal comment, while inserting subtle cues that overspecify emotional or epistemic aspects of the speech acts being reported (loudness, emphasis, tone, affect, frequency of topic) hence causing a distancing effect.…”