Representation Of Interpersonal Meaning In The Translation Of Dramatic Dialogues

The translation of drama between Chinese and English has been going on for many years. Theessential component in drama is the dramatic dialogues. Through dramatic dialogues, sophisticatedinterpersonal relationships and the plot evolution can be well established and maintained. Interpersonalmeaning, as an important concept in Systematic Functional Linguistics, has something to do with theinterpersonal relationship between speakers. Speakers make such interpersonal meaning as: the power andsolidarity of each role, the degree of intimacy, the extent of their familiarity with each other, one’s attitudesand judgments. Hence, interpersonal meaning is very rich and important in dramatic dialogues. We can saythat to some extent, it is the representation of interpersonal meaning that decides the success or failure oftranslating dramatic dialogues. But different languages have different linguistic devices to expressinterpersonal meaning. It is the same case for Chinese and English. This brings a challenging task totranslators.Thunderstorm is one of the classics of modern Chinese dramas. In this drama, Cao Yu creates eightvivid characters, and the interpersonal relationship between them is complex and subtle. Through dramaticdialogues, the play fully reflects each role’s identity, social status, attitude, motivation and the subtleinterpersonal relationship with each other. Its English version, co-translated by Wang Zuoliang andA.C.Barnes in1958, has caused general appreciation from readers both at home and abroad.Based on Halliday’s Systematic Functional Linguistics, mood and modality is the main resources torealize interpersonal meaning. Therefore, through analyzing examples from dramatic dialogues in ST andTT, this thesis explores how interpersonal meaning is represented in terms of mood system and modalitysystem. The result is that in terms of mood system, the difficulties to represent interpersonal meaningmainly lie in the following three aspects: first, English has no modal particles expressing interpersonalmeaning in Chinese; second, finite elements used in English are lacking in Chinese; third, both languageshave different habits of using subjects. As regards modality, people of different cultural backgrounds havedifferent attitudes towards a proposition and varied ways to express them. Specifically speaking, it ismainly concerned with modality value and modality orientation. The thesis has found out the possiblereasons causing the gap of mood and modality between Chinese and English. In addition, the thesisdiscusses what strategies taken by translator can make the translation not only equivalent in interpersonalmeaning, but also well accepted by target readers.