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"Who do we tell, and how do we tell?": Examining the use of modal verbs and pronouns in the translation of medication package inserts
Linnaeus University, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Department of Languages.
2020 (English)Independent thesis Advanced level (degree of Master (One Year)), 40 credits / 60 HE creditsStudent thesis
Abstract [en]

This exploratory study examines the use of modal verbs and pronouns in medication packageinserts (MPIs). The study focuses on the translation of MPIs from English to Swedish. MPIsare leaflets that provide information about medications. They are divided into two sections: aprovider section and a patient section. The results of the study show that modal verbs andpronouns are more common in the patient section compared to the provider section. This ismost likely due to the two sections having different main functions. The provider sectionaims to inform, whereas the patient section aims to direct. One of the differences noted in thetranslation of MPIs is that modal verbs are more frequent in the Swedish provider sectioncompared to the English provider section. One explanation for this is that hedging isgenerally more common in English than in Swedish. With hedging, passive constructions andagentless sentences are sometimes used instead of modal verbs (Kranich 2011:80). A seconddifference noted is the lack of one-to-one translation relating to modal verbs. Context andculture become deciding factors when electing which modal verb to use in a translation.Should, for example, has at least three different translations in Swedish depending on themodal verb strength that needs to be conveyed. In regard to pronouns, the main differencebetween English and Swedish is the fact that English MPIs have started to use I in the patientsection of the MPI in an attempt to engage the patient in a fictional question-answer scenario.Swedish MPIs have stayed with using du for a more informal conversation style address.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
2020. , p. 36
National Category
Languages and Literature
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:lnu:diva-97987OAI: oai:DiVA.org:lnu-97987DiVA, id: diva2:1465056
Subject / course
English
Educational program
Nonfiction Translation Master Programme between English/French/German/Spanish and Swedish, 60 credits
Supervisors
Examiners
Available from: 2020-09-11 Created: 2020-09-08 Last updated: 2020-09-11Bibliographically approved

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CiteExportLink to record
Permanent link

Direct link
Cite
Citation style
  • apa
  • ieee
  • modern-language-association-8th-edition
  • vancouver
  • Other style
More styles
Language
  • de-DE
  • en-GB
  • en-US
  • fi-FI
  • nn-NO
  • nn-NB
  • sv-SE
  • Other locale
More languages
Output format
  • html
  • text
  • asciidoc
  • rtf