A Study On The Translation Of Modal Verbs In Military English From The Interpersonal Functional Perspective

Military strength is important to national security.Under the complicated international situation,reading foreign military publications can help our army understand the military strength of other countries.So it is of great significance to translate military English text accurately.Modal verbs are often used in military English to express obligation,will,frequency and probability.Halliday divides modality into three values in the interpersonal function of language,that is:high,medium and low.Taking MCWP 3-01 Offensive and Defensive Tactics(excerpt)as examples,this thesis focuses on the translation of modal verbs’ value conversion in military English.According to the analysis of corpus,this thesis summarizes the use of modal verbs and the conversion of their values in translation.By analyzing specific examples,this thesis lists five conditions of values conversion in modal verbs translation,namely,high to low,medium to high,medium to low,low to high and low to medium.When the corresponding translation of modal verbs can not express the degree of modal meaning,value conversion could help to express the information delivered by the original text more accurately.At the same time,the mood of the translation can be strengthened and weakened through the conversion.