We might aways use hedges and boosters in text : The English-Swedish translation of hedges and boosters in an academic literature textbook

Abstract: This paper discusses the translation of hedges and boosters from English to Swedish in an academic textbook. In a statement, hedges express uncertainty and carefulness, while boosters are used to express certainty and confidence. The primary source in this paper is an academic textbook on English literature, which was translated by the author of this paper to analyse how hedges and boosters and their expressions are translated. The different categories of hedges and boosters discussed in the analysis are: verbs, both auxiliary and lexical, adverbs, adjectives, nouns, phrases, and prepositions. The study is carried out using linguistic studies, translation studies, corpora, and dictionaries.  Hedges and boosters are frequent features in the source text, hedges being slightly more frequent than boosters. The most commonly used hedges are the auxiliary verbs might and would, and the adjective some. The most frequent boosters are the auxiliary verbs will and must, and the adjective very. Most of the hedges and boosters are translated with literal translation, but transposition and omission occur as well. Even though most hedges and boosters are translated, the analysis shows that no word or phrase exists purely as a booster or hedge, as they depend on the text’s context.