Academic voices : A study of the link between the translation of textual metadiscourse and accountability in Swedish translations

Sammanfattning: This study aims to investigate the effects that translation from English to Swedish has had on the textual metalanguage in an academic text and to what extent the accountability has been altered by comparing the data to the findings of Malmström (2007). The study takes both a quantitative and qualitative approach and compares the methods of translation to those by Vinay and Darbelnet (1995). The study finds that 73% of all textual metadiscourse items were translated using Vinay and Darbelnet’s literal translation method and that the overall effect on accountability was low. The analysis uses Herriman’s (2010) study as the principal source on Swedish standards for metadiscourse usage and a comparison of the translation choices made. However, due to the limited number of sources mapping out and describing the average usage of metadiscourse in Swedish, the study has not been able to draw any overarching conclusions regarding the naturalness of the translation choices that were made.