Strategies in Translating German Modal particle doch in Wolfgang Borchert’s short stories

Abstract

This research article aims to analyze the process and strategies in translating modal particle doch found in various communicative situations in selected Wolfgang Borchert’s short stories from German into Thai. The findings show that one of the decisive factors in selecting translating strategies for doch roots in how the translator interprets the communicative intention or function of doch embedded in the original text. In the translated version, omission of doch is frequently employed as a translating strategy when its function is expressed by semantically equivalent phrases or when – seen as Wolfgang Borchert’s stylistic uniqueness - the use of doch is repetitive in the context. Other translating strategies are utilized to convey or emphasize the original communicative intentions such as use of doch equivalences in Thai or pragmatic translation.