The making of modality: how the modal features of L’Étranger are translated into English
If we take modality to mean the linguistic features of a text that express a subject’s attitude (towards the propositional content) or intellectual and emotional judgements – Bally (1942), Palmer (1986), Le Querler (1996) and Bosseaux (2007) - then the treatment of modality is a huge concern for translators, because it is rarely (if ever) absent from a proposition. A translation should reflect the subtle shadings of modality present in the original text, and this is especially true of L’Étranger, where Camus’ treatment of modality is very particular: in Part One, the reader is given only a tiny window into Meursault’s thought processes and psychological development, whereas in Part Two his subjectivity is revealed more clearly and the text is noticeably more modalised.
This comparative study is conducted from a traductological perspective and presents the differences between how the modality of Meursault’s discourse in L’Étranger is rendered in three English translations, notably those of Stuart Gilbert (1946), Joseph Laredo (1982) and Sandra Smith (2012). Modality is divided according to Simpson’s (1993) classification: epistemic (to do with probability and a subject’s commitment to the truth of a proposition), deontic (which concerns duty, obligation and necessity) and boulomaic (which centres on inclination, desires, wishes, fears and regrets). Examples from each category are located in the original text, and the differences between the interpretations of the translators under study are examined to see what effect this has on the Anglophone reader’s perception of Meursault’s attitude towards the world around him and his place within it. In the passage to English, shifts in the three types of modality are operated which sometimes have the effect of presenting a man who is more reflective, doubtful, sensitive or self-questioning. This presentation will foreground the function of modality, the way it is grammaticised and its close links with tense and aspect.