Representation Of Interpersonal Meaning In The Translation Of Dialogues In Fortress Besieged

Dialogues are an important part of fiction.They are a crucial means of characterizing and portraying characters.Dialogues also contain rich interpersonal meaning.Interpersonal meaning is an important concept in Systemic Functional Linguistics,which reflects the role relationships among speakers in communication.Through interpersonal meaning,speakers can express viewpoints,attitudes and judgment,demonstrate identity and status and influence other people's thoughts and actions.Thus to clearly and precisely realize interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues is of great significance.Based on Systemic Functional Linguistic proposed by M.A.K.Halliday,the thesis conducts a comparative study of dialogues in Fortress Besieged created by Chinese famous writer Qian Zhongshu and its English version by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao.The study is intended to provide guidance to the translation of dialogues of Chinese fiction by exploring the representation interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues in Fortress Besieged.The paper is a qualitative research with the case study as the method.The thesis selects dialogues among major characters in Fortress Besieged as research materials and makes a comparative analysis of interpersonal meaning in the source text and target text in terms of mood system,modality system and address terms.After investigation of the representation of interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues,findings are as follows.The factors that affect the representation of interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues are mood choices,mood metaphor,modal particles in mood system,modal operators in modality system,and address terms.Generally speaking,there is some loss of interpersonal meaning in the English version of Fortress Besieged created by Jeanne Kelly and Nathan K.Mao.To be specific,firstly in terms of mood choices,the interpersonal meaning is partly lost in the target text;the preservation or alteration of mood choices in the translation isdetermined by the acceptability of target readers.Secondly,modality values of modal adjuncts in the target text are not exactly the same as those in the source text,which causes loss of interpersonal meaning.Thirdly,some address terms in the target text fail to exactly reflect the speaker's feelings,attitude and status in the source text.Fourthly,as Chinese modal particles can also contain interpersonal meanings and there are no such devices in English,translators can make some compensation through other grammatical devices to transfer the interpersonal meanings implied in modal particles:(1)the use of modal operators or the use of perfective aspects of modal operators;(2)the use of mood adjuncts of intensity to convey speakers' emotion;(3)the use of mood metaphors.The thesis tries to investigate the presentation of interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues in Fortress Besieged.Through the investigation,the author hopes that translators can attach importance to the representation of interpersonal meaning in the translation of dialogues in Chinese fiction so that interpersonal relationships among characters in fiction can be clearly presented before target readers.