An Appraisal-based Study on Divergence of Evaluative Meanings in Student Translations

Following a discourse-oriented approach, this study examines variations student translators made in reproducing important source text (ST) evaluative meanings, aiming to gain insights for translator education. Key aspects of maintaining ST evaluative meanings include recognizing and re-expressing the ST author’s positive/negative attitudes, stances, and their degree of intensity. For this purpose, we adopt the appraisal framework to systematically examine and compare the evaluative meanings in the source and the target texts. Our dataset consists of two English news reports as the STs and their 130 Chinese translations by 65 students at the undergraduate level. Analyses reveal that variations of the renderings of evaluation in language would result in divergence from the STs. The variations indicate a potential lack of awareness or sensitivity to evaluative language among the student translators. Thus, we stress the importance and usefulness of appraisal-based analysis as a pedagogical tool for translator education.