Transvocal stance in academic translation: A rhetorical analysis of grammatical stance in translated applied linguistics English research article abstracts

Abstract

Translators of academic texts mediate source-language constraints and English as a Lingua Franca (ELF) academic norms, often leading to varied representations of authorial stance. However, this “third code” of translational academic language, distinct from both source and target languages, remains underexplored. This research addresses this gap by examining the transvocal presence of authorial and translatorial stances in Chinese-to-English applied linguistics research article abstracts (RAAs). It explores the addition, cross-type transfer, and direct transfer of four types of stance-taking grammatical devices into translated English RAAs and their rhetorical roles across five moves, supported by statistical analysis. The study finds that translators prefer the use of modal and epistemic devices, followed by communicative and attitudinal resources, and they engage asymmetrically with both stance-rich (i.e., findings, discussions) and less stance-rich moves. There is a balanced distribution of translatorial and authorial stances across moves in attitudinal, communicative, and modal devices. However, authorial epistemic stance is largely preserved in presenting findings. These findings highlight a complex interlingual mechanism in academic translation, where micro-level changes in lexico-grammatical features impact the macro-level discursive landscape. It showcases translators’ professional agency in selectively deploying translatorial and authorial stances across moves of RAAs.