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

Abstract

In Jane Austen’s novels conversation provides internal evidence of the “moral and social nature of characters” (Morini, 2009, p. 9). Among the interplay of speech presentation forms (Page, 1972/2011), Narrative Report of Speech Acts (Leech & Short, 2007) has drawn less scholarly attention than others, for example Free Indirect Speech. However, NRSA condenses information about two communicative acts and therefore two addressers, namely the reporting narrator and the reported speaker (the character). Investigating this superposition of voices requires an integrative approach combining a speech-act theory analysis of the character’s speech with an analysis of both the character’s and the narrator’s dialogic stance, here set in the system of Engagement in Martin and White (2005). This paper aims to present this approach and to apply it to the description of Mansfield Park and its translations into Spanish and German. A sample of instances of NRSA and their translation solutions is analysed. While the most frequent type is literal translation, with both layers of meaning successfully reproduced, instances of translation shifts have been identified involving illocutionary force (addition, elimination or change of illocutionary features) and/or engagement value, combined with changes in certain cooccurring distancing devices. Such shifts suggest possible distortions to characterization cues.