Appraisal in translation: Evaluative expressions in German transcripts of English TED Talks

This study seeks to identify how translation affects evaluative expressions from English to German in transcripts of TED talks. Using Appraisal Theory as a framework, we analyse how evaluative language is transferred in German subtitles and whether it is altered, omitted, or directly translated. The dataset used in this study comprises four English transcripts of TED talks, restricted to the single topic of natural science. We employ eight annotators in a manual annotation task - undergraduate translation students trained in Appraisal Theory. The students manually identify evaluative expressions in pairs and, in a second step, tag the translation strategies individually. We conduct a contrastive analysis of English and German evaluative patterns in context, focusing on the distribution of Attitude types per translation strategy employed. The findings suggest a preference for equivalence in the translation of evaluative expressions from English to German and indicate a shining-through effect as well as adaptation to German lexico-grammatical preferences in translation. Statistical analysis is performed to evaluate the influence of Attitude types on the translation strategies. The results of this study contribute to understanding the role of evaluative language in translation and complement existing research on translation strategies of evaluative language.