Amplifiers and Profanities in the English and French Translations of Mo Yan’s Frog: A Comparative Corpus-Assisted Discourse Analysis

Abstract

This article presents a comparative corpus-assisted discourse analysis of amplifiers and profanities in the English and French translations of Mo Yan’s Frog. Combining frequency-based corpus profiling with Critical Discourse Analysis, the study examines cross-text differences in amplification and taboo calibration and interprets them in relation to target-language norms, readership expectations, and translator strategy. The results show that the French translation contains a higher normalized frequency within the selected amplifier set, whereas the English translation shows a higher overall profanity rate than the French version. Qualitative analysis further indicates that these differences are mediated by contextual and stylistic factors rather than attributable to translator gender alone. The study contributes to literary translation research by showing how expressive intensity and taboo language are reconfigured across translation contexts through both lexical patterning and discourse-level choices.