Gender-Based emotional representation in accompanying sentences in three English translations of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina

Abstract

This BA thesis examines how emotional colouring in accompanying sentences is rendered in three English translations of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina (1877) by Constance Garnett (1901), Louise and Aylmer Maude (1918), and Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky (2000), with particular attention to gender-based differences in the portrayal of male and female characters. The literature review establishes the narratological and methodological framework for analysing accompanying sentences and identifies a gap in research on gender and translation. The methodology section describes the qualitative comparative analysis of six passages using Molina and Hurtado Albir’s (2002) translation techniques and Caldas-Coulthard’s (1996) classification of reporting verbs. The analysis demonstrates that female passages show greater variation across translations than male passages and that each translator adopts a distinct strategy: Garnett (1901) domesticates, Maude (1918) normalises, and Pevear and Volokhonsky (2000) foreignise. The conclusion discusses the implications of these findings for understanding how gender-based emotional asymmetry in the original novel is mediated in translation.