Specifying Metadiscoursal Signals in the Novel Pride and Prejudice and its Two Persian Translations By Copple’s model (1980)

Abstract

Finding out the metadiscoursal signals in any language and analyzing their usage specially in meaning transfer
between two different languages is very important. The present paper adopted the model presented by Vande Copple (1980), to
find all of the metadiscoursal signals in the first five chapters of the novel Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. The number of
metadiscoursal signals in all of the related parts in the original novel was compared with those of its two Persian renderings by
Pooranfar and Ardakani by a comparative study using Vande Copple’s model. The results of the study showed that the number
of metadiscoursal signals usage in the TL translation made by Ardakani was more than of those in Pooranfar’s translation.
However, considering both translations, they were poor in transferring the original metadiscoursal signals into the Persian
language and it resulted to the less comprehensibility of them comparing to that of original novel. Besides, the consistency,
meaningfulness and communicativeness of the translated texts were in a lower level than the original due to the lower number of
metadiscoursal signals. As a result, it was made clear that the use of metadiscoursal signals is necessary and complementary in
any kind of discourse use.