Representation Of Interpersonal Meaning In The Translation Of Dialogues In Pride And Prejudice

Fiction is centered on characterization, which can be achieved by dialogues.Dialogues are closely associated with interpersonal meaning, which is an importantconcept in Systemic Functional Linguistics. As one of the most abstract andgeneralized meanings, interpersonal meaning is inherent in languages. Throughinterpersonal meaning, speakers can express intentions, viewpoints and attitudes,demonstrate identity, status and power, establish and maintain interpersonalrelationships with other people as well as influence their thoughts and actions so as tocommunicate and interact with them.From the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics, the thesis conducts astudy of the dialogues in Pride and Prejudice and two Chinese versions by WangKeyi and Sun Zhili respectively. The study aims to explore how interpersonalmeaning is represented in the translation of dialogues.The study is qualitative with the case study as the concrete method. The studyhas yielded the following findings. Firstly, the factors that can affect therepresentation of interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues are moodchoices, metaphors of mood, Subject, tense and polarity in mood system, andmetaphors of modality and values of modality in modality system. Secondly,generally speaking, Wang’s version represents interpersonal meaning in terms ofmetaphors of mood and metaphors of modality, while Sun’s version represents it inrespect of mood choices, Subject, tense, polarity and values of modality. Lastly,specifically, the preservation or alteration of mood choices and metaphors of mood inthe translation is determined by the acceptability of the target readers. Modal particlesin Chinese are conducive to highlighting characters’ personalities. Besides, theSubject in the translation is reliant on the intention of the speaker and the relationshipsamong characters. The three most frequently used ways to translate tense are omission,addition of demonstrative pronouns and free translation. Interpersonal meaning can be represented through polarity which corresponds to the artistic style of fiction. Inaddition, if metaphors of modality and values of modality are the same with those inthe source text, interpersonal meaning can also be represented.