Феноменология модальной неопределенности в Преступлении и наказании Ф. М. Достоевского: анализ языка и переводческие решения

Abstract

The Phenomenology of Modal Indeterminacy in Crime and Punishment by F. M. Dostoevsky: Analysis of Language and Translation Solutions

The article examines the typology of modal indeterminacy in F. M. Dostoevsky’s literary language and the specific features of its translation into Spanish, using the novel Crime and Punishment as the primary source material. The study uses a functional-semantic and phenomenological approach in order to analyze a wide range of modal markers: epistemic (cognitive, perceptual, retrospective, unreal/hypothetical, pragmatic and comparative) emotional-psychological and behavioral. The research shows that modal indeterminacy in Dostoevsky goes beyond being a linguistic or stylistic device. Rather, it enables a mode of phenomenological givenness and reflects the dynamic structure of consciousness as it develops. Through modal markers, thought shifts between perception and imagination, knowledge and conjecture, emotion and action. This process shapes the polyphonic field of authorial and character consciousness. In Spanish translation, such indeterminacy demands functional compensation, since many Russian modal markers lack direct equivalents in Spanish. Thus, the translator has to recreate the cognitive and affective instability of the utterance, not just its form. Building upon this classification, we propose a set of translation solutions for each of the identified categories, with the aim of achieving a more precise and conceptually accurate reproduction of Dostoevsky’s stylistic and aesthetic effects in Spanish.

Keywords: Dostoevsky; modal indeterminacy; phenomenology of consciousness; literary translation, Russian, Spanish.