The translation of actually as an expression of evidentiality: a corpus-based analysis

Abstract

Evidential markers in the form of adverbs are one of the most important and useful tools languages possess to modify the meaning of propositions adding authorial stance at word or sentence level. The expression of evidentiality, described as an indicator of to know what we know, i.e. the indication of how the speaker has obtained the information or acquired knowledge, varies considerably from one language to another by virtue of the cultural background in which a text is produced. At this point, the translation of evidentiality is of particular relevance in order to compare how other languages express the speaker´s implication or impartiality in the proposition.  

This study is based on the translation of “actually” as an evidential adverb to express authorial stance through a corpus-based translation analysis. To this end, I have analysed the multilingual UNESCO Corpus, a subcorpus within the Linguistic Corpus of the University of Vigo (CLUVI), to examine the entries offered for actuallyin its collection of scientific-technical texts and determine which translation strategy has been regarded as an equivalent in the target texts.  After the analysis of the corpus, I conclude that it is not possible to stablish an equivalence neither in the translation of the evidentials nor in the use of translation strategies, what means that every language has its own way and method to either lexically or grammatically highlight the source of the information available for the speaker.