I. YAKOVLEV CHUVASH STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY BULLETIN

modality of desire, speech characteristics, Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie, contrastive analysis, literary translation, naturalist prose

This article examines the modality of desire as a key narrative device in the speech characteristics of Carrie Meeber in Theodore Dreiser’s novel Sister Carrie. The study’s relevance is underscored by the need to investigate the linguistic mechanisms of character psychologisation within an integrated framework of linguistic and literary analysis. The research employs a continuous sampling of speech contexts from the original novel and its Russian translation by M. Volosov, followed by a contrastive analysis. The study identifies an evolution in the linguistic expression of desire – from subjunctive forms to categorical assertions – reflecting the protagonist’s social transformation. The co­mparative analysis reveals how these features operate in translation, partially mitigating the naturalistic starkness of the original text. It is established that the modality of desire serves a dual function: as an instrument for psychological character revelation and a vehicle for social criticism. This work contributes to the study of linguistic devices for characteristics in naturalist prose and the challenges of translating modal meanings.

Baranov, Mikhail Alekseevich – Post-graduate Student majoring in Literature of the Peoples of the World, Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University, Kaliningrad, Russia, https://orcid.org/0009-0001-7541-5062, barmysh21@gmail.com