A feature of everyday speech in translation. The discourse marker i wo and its correlates in four novels by Hans Fallada (1893–1947) translated into Catalan

This paper studies the discursive functions of the marker i wo in literary dialogues and their translation into Catalan. In the framework of fictional orality, it is assumed that i wo evokes spoken language in character speech, a trait that is also prioritised in the target language. For the study, 45 occurrences from four novels by Hans Fallada were analysed. The results indicate that the discourse marker is mainly used as a modaliser to express the speaker’s attitude. Other values are related to the reformulating function, in which the sender revisits a preceding segment of the turn in order to clarify it, and the conclusive function, whereby i wo is used to raise the argumentative force of the speaker’s enunciation to close the topic. The analysis carried out shows that the different functions of the marker are not mutually exclusive and that it is a polyfunctional unit that can act on different levels of conversational construction, such as the organisation of the discourse or the regulation of conversation. The translator’s approach is clearly characterised by reproducing the sparsely described marker from its context, which also includes the corresponding functions.