The translation of hedging, adjectives and non-finite ing-participles in Horses Talking by Margrit Coates

Abstract: The purpose of this study was to translate a number of selected pages from the book Horses Talking by Margrit Coates into Swedish. An analysis of the source text and the translation was carried out with the focus on three aspects: hedging, adjectives and non-finite ing-participles. The subject of the translated text lies within the broad field of animal behaviour, parapsychology and telepathy, and focuses exclusively on communication between humans and horses. Given the nature of the text, which contains cautious advice and qualified recommendations to the reader, hedging has an important function to fill. Furthermore, there are many adjectives, which give the text a certain character, and they are essential to the message of the book: how to create a good relationship between humans and horses. Theories within the translation shift approach were applied to the study. In particular, Catford’s model and terminology were looked at. Hedging at word and phrase level primarily proved to be realised by the use of modal auxiliary verbs as hedges in the source text; this application was also primarily transferred into the target text. The most common translation strategy used was literal translation. A compound noun or noun (class shift) and a prepositional phrase (unit shift) were the most common translation methods for the attributive adjectives in the analysis. The predicative adjectives were primarily translated with a verb (class shift) or a verb phrase (unit shift) and with a prepositional phrase (unit shift). For the non-finite ing-participles, a variety of methods were applied, among which the most important were the att-infinitive (grammatical shift) and a relative clause (unit shift).