A Research On Translation Of Modal Meanings Between English And Chinese

According to Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics theory, language has three meta-functions, namely ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function, the meaning system corresponding to these three functions consists of ideational meaning, interpersonal meaning and textual meaning. The core of interpersonal meaning is the communicative purpose and communicative intention, including the relations, feelings, the attitudes and evaluation of the communicators, and modal meaning is the main component of interpersonal meaning. Modality is the important means for communicators to exchange subjective attitude and establish interpersonal relationships, involving modal commitment, intention, interpersonal behavior standard, and social ideology. Interpersonal meaning, which is expressed by ideational meaning, in turn restricts the realization of ideational meaning and textual meaning at the same time. Taking language function as the starting point, Halliday’s functional linguistics separates interpersonal meaning from ideational and textual meanings, which enables people to study meaning in a more sophisticated way.Translation is translating meaning. In the history of western translation studies, different schools, whether it advocates faithful translation or equivalent translation, or text manipulation, all focus on the transmission of the source text meaning. But the traditional faithful translation lays emphasis on the same effect as the original to be achieved in content, style and expressiveness. Equivalence theory maintains that translation equivalence can be attained through two means, namely formal correspondence and dynamic equivalence (later called functional equivalence), with the former stressing the content of the source text and the latter focusing on the acceptability to the target readers. Different from traditional faithful translation and equivalence theory, the manipulation school turns to study translation related factors such as culture, ideology and politics, which has shifted the main concern from within language scope to the social and cultural spheres.Generally speaking, the study of meaning in the above theories mainly deals with the ideational meaning without adequate consideration for the realization of interpersonal meaning. In terms of the meaning system in Systemic Functional Linguistics, traditional faithful translation principles will find itself caught in a dilemma if the source text intends to convey interpersonal meaning,(e.g modal meaning), because it can hardly handle translation style and wording properly in its system, since different cultures result in quite different language realization. The meaning handled in equivalence theory is just a static concept, which does not take into account the specific context of the interaction and the impacts of cross-cultural factors. It focuses only on the transmission of the ideational meaning, ignoring the realization of interpersonal meaning. The manipulation school aims to take cultural studies as its main concern by manipulating the ideational meaning of the source text, which greatly weakens the ontological study of translation. From the perspective of interpersonal meaning expressed by modality, the manipulation school also fails to address the reconstruction of interpersonal meaning and its functional realization.Chinese translation theory, in a large sense, adheres to the literary aesthetics tradition. The concepts of "faithful to the source text"、 "faithfulness, expressiveness, elegance" and "spiritual resemblance" and "transmigration" focus on the overall meaning of the source text, emphasizing the aesthetic effect of the integration of the translator and the source text. It holds that the highest standard of literary translation is "Transmigration" --- the ultimate goal in art. To sum up, Chinese translation theories stress the general impression, as a result, it shows ambiguity in the expression of meaning and lacks accuracy. There is no clear distinction between ideational meaning and interpersonal meaning in Chinese translation studies.The study of translation theory and practice in the history reveals that interpersonal meaning has not adequately been dealt with. The reason may lie in that the ideational meaning expresses specific events and information, which can be clearly conveyed through language form; while interpersonal meaning is usually parasitic in and embodied by ideational meaning. Specifically, the interpersonal meaning expressed by modal meaning which is conveyed by verbal and non-verbal means of expression such as mood, tone, attitude, is rhythmically diffused in the ideational meaning. The covert feature of modal expression constitutes the main reason for its long being neglected in the translation process. It is obvious that interpersonal meaning plays the same important role as ideational meaning in translation to assure the successful implementation of human communication. Laying emphasis on the meaning and function, systemic functional linguistics maintains that the meaning of language lies in the specific process of use, thus meaning is closely related to context. The functional-oriented approach is the discourse analysis approach based on systemic functional linguistics, with its focus on the communicative function and form between the source and target text. Integrating micro linguistic context with macro situational context in its research scope, the function-oriented approach studies both language and culture, which will better describe and explain translation phenomena.Huang Zhending argues that the faithfulness principle in translation should contain two levels:1) faithfulness based on bilingual and bi-text contrast; 2) faithfulness aiming at culture and humanity, namely the translator should probe into culture (including language and humanity from cultural perspective). Compared with traditional "faithfulness" theory, professor Huang’s faithfulness theory undoubtedly takes a big leap forward, because it does not only focus on the source text, moreover, it covers the elements related to humanity in the context of culture, which equals the interpersonal meaning in systemic functional linguistics, and thus enriches the connotation of the concept of faithfulness in translation.Interpersonal function of language means the speaker can use language to participate in social activities. Including modality into the scope of interpersonal meta-function, systemic functional linguistics explains that modality is the important means to reproduce interpersonal meaning, so it is significant for us to conduct research on modality from the cross-culture perspective. This study faces the applicability of systemic functional linguistic research --- the mutual translation between English and Chinese modal meanings. Applying function-oriented translation approach and Huang’s faithfulness theory, by means of contrastive analysis and theoretical hypothesis, the study exemplifies and verifies the theory for the translation of modal meaning qualitatively and quantitatively through "bottom-up" and "top-down" approaches. The study falls into five chapters in addition to an introduction and a conclusion.In the introduction, the research background is described, research scope and research questions are proposed, moreover, the research methods and significance are clarified.The first chapter introduces in detail Halliday’s theory of modality. Beginning with the introduction of three meta-functions in systemic functional linguistics, it expounds on the modality theory in the interpersonal function system. Through the explanation of the three variants in modality system, namely classification, orientation and value, it points out that modality theory in systemic functional linguistics covers wider scope, boasts richer connotations and can explain text more substantially. Then the author illustrates modern significance of Halliday’s theory, which provides a theoretical framework for a contrastive study of English and Chinese modality and functional approach to translation studies. Based on the common human emotional language, a comparative study on the common features of English and Chinese modalities is carried out, demonstrating the three modal commonalities, namely both English and Chinese modalities are important means to achieve interpersonal meaning; modal verbs in both Chinese and English are a typical category to realize modal meaning; both languages have modality metaphor, which is regarded as the variant of modality and expresses different orientations of modal meaning. Finally the author argues that the modal system in systemic functional linguistics expands the scope of modality, which enhances the explanatory power of modality in expressing interpersonal meaning.Chapter 2 makes a contrastive study of English and Chinese modality system from the three aspects of language features, cultural characteristics and pragmatic implementation by contrastive analysis. It first analyzes the differences in syntactical distribution and semantic expression of modal verbs in English and Chinese, explaining that English modal verbs have the uniform syntactic characteristics resulting from the strict formal prerequisites in their definition. Chinese belongs to the semantic type, so modal verbs are defined according to the semantic features and there is no strict formal characteristic in Chinese modal verbs. English modal verbs can be used with other grammatical categories such as tense and aspect, which constitutes diversification of morphological characteristics, delicate modal semantics, more specific meaning; while Chinese modal expressions convey more general meaning due to the lack of morphological support. In the case of modal semantics, Chinese tend to use explicit modal expressions which usually employ modal verbs and mood particles to express modality. English modal verbs have clear differentiation in values and orientations; while only a vague difference in value can be revealed in Chinese modal verbs, and there is no symmetrical distribution between functions and modal meanings. By contrastive analysis of the modality metaphor in English and Chinese, we find that the differences are mainly caused by English hypotactic and Chinese paratactic features. English modality metaphors are expressed by the projected clause, the predicate extension but the Chinese modality metaphors are chiefly achieved through the semantic implications.The contrastive study is also undertaken from the impacts caused by different values, way of thinking, behavior standards and other factors between English and Chinese modalities from the perspective of context of culture The author argues that context of culture, which affects the realization of interpersonal function, is the fundamental cause resulting in differences in modal expressions and should become the main concern in the study of modality translation. Finally by dealing with subjectivity and politeness, the contrastive study concentrates on different ways of the pragmatic realization of the English and Chinese modalities. The study clarifies that Chinese modality manifests stronger subjectivity. It also elaborates different modes of politeness expressed by English and Chinese modalities, namely, English agreement mode VS Chinese modesty mode; English willingness mode VS Chinese responsibility mode.Based on the comprehensive contrastive studies of English and Chinese modalities, the thesis proposes dynamic faithfulness principle for the translation of modal meanings. Specifically speaking, the translator should firstly study modal meanings in concrete context through function-oriented approach and text analysis in the system of functional linguistics. Then he needs to find out the appropriate modal expressions to realize interpersonal function in the target language. Appropriate deviations in form from the source text are necessary to dynamically balance the form and meaning in target language and the readers’acceptability should also be considered in order to achieve interpersonal function expressed by the modality and facilitate cross culture communication.Chapter 3 undertakes extensive researches into translation tactics regarding the mutual translation of modal meanings between English and Chinese through two channels:1) complete equivalent conversion and 2) flexible dynamic conversion. When commonalities such as modal verbs, modal adverbs and explicit subjective modality metaphors exist in English and Chinese modalities, complete equivalent conversion is highly suggested so as to facilitate the comprehensive faithful reproduction of modal meanings in form and content. When differentiations arise in such aspects as language style, thinking mode, behavior standards between the two languages, flexible dynamic conversion is proposed to ensure the correct restructuring of modal meanings in target text. To be concrete, in flexible dynamic conversion, the translator needs to change the form of modal expressions in order to attain more appropriate modal meanings in translation.Then the thesis probes into the transforming regulations by studying the conversion tendency of modality orientations and modality values. Normally, in E-C translation, the tendency of modal meanings changes from implicit to explicit; objective to subjective; low value to high value, and C-E translation manifests the opposite tendency.Finally, the thesis investigates the motivation of the transforming regulations from language resources, language style and psychological characterization concerning modality. It clarifies the justification of the transforming regulations for modal meanings, which further prove the rationality and applicability of the dynamic faithfulness principle for modal translation in order to guide the practice of translation of modal meanings.Chapter 4 first examines the constraints and impacts of the macro-cultural context on the reconstruction of modal meanings through investigation of the historical background, values, ideology, traditional poetics. It argues that the context of culture relevant to modal meanings of target text should be comprehensively analyzed and meanwhile, cultural background, political system, values of the target readers should also be adequately addressed so that the modal meanings of the source text will be dynamically reproduced by making such necessary adjustments as deletion, changing the sentence structure according to the context of culture of the target text.Furthermore, this chapter makes an analysis of the communicative subjects in the restructuring of modal meanings in view of "function" and "context" concepts in functional linguistics. By arguing that the process of restructuring modal meanings is a process of mutual agreement and mutual compromising among the communicative subjects (the source text author, the translator, the target reader), the author claims that the translator’s subjectivity plays a positive role in the reconstruction of modal meanings. Through exemplification and analysis, the thesis demonstrates that the author of the source text is the conceiver of the original modal meanings, which provides the translator with translation text; the target reader is the recipient of the target modal meanings whose cultural background and interest in reading may have restriction on translator’s choice of translation strategy. Thus the translator needs not only to analyze the modal meanings conceived by the author of the source text but also to fully consider the acceptability to the target readers to exercise reasonable manipulations on the modal meanings in order to achieve its appropriate reproduction in target text.In the context of culture, the thesis discusses the application regulation of domestication and foreignization strategies in the restructuring of modal meanings. It points out that in domestication translation, the translator should value the style of language expression and social norms of target text, adapting to the target readers’context of culture to make the translation of modal meanings expressive and understandable. In foreignization translation, the translator should lay more emphasis on the conveyance of forms and style of the source text modal meanings, preserving as much as possible the alien elements and national characteristics to create new meaning potentiality in modality and "exotic atmosphere" in order to enrich the target language culture. It needs to point out that sometimes it is necessary to integrate the strategies of domestication and foreignization in the process of modal meaning reconstruction, keeping cultural fidelity in an expressive way. The study of the restructuring regulations of modal meaning from the perspective of context of culture verifies the applicability of the dynamic faithfulness principle of modal meaning translation.Chapter 5 discusses the restructuring regulations of modal meanings from the perspective of pragmatic context. The author believes the translation of modal meanings should observe specific translation principle, namely ideational meaning is subject to pragmatic interpersonal meaning. The translator should explore the communicative intention hidden behind the ideational meaning to achieve the proper translation in order to realize the communicative value. The thesis also explains how the communicative intention is restricted by tenor, mode and acceptability of modality and formulates the feasible translation strategies to reconstruct modal meanings so as to facilitate accurate comprehension and dynamic conveyance of the communicative intention of the source text.Then the research of the relationship between modality and politeness is conducted. By demonstrating that the relationship can be measured through the realization of modality variants such as orientation and value in the three pragmatic scales of politeness such as cost-benefit scale, the indirectness scale and the optionality scale, the author insists that modal expressions are important means to attain politeness. Specific researches are also carried out respectively through indirectness of modality expressing politeness, interaction between modality values and the cost-benefit scale, interaction between modality orientation and the optionality scale. This chapter goes on to make a contrastive analysis between English and Chinese politeness maxims, illustrating the dynamic transformation of modal politeness. Through exemplifications of the reconstruction regulations of English and Chinese modality politeness, the author believes there exist different modes to realize modal politeness, the English tend to express modal politeness according to agreement and willingness modes; while the Chinese prefer to convey modal politeness in accordance with modesty and responsibility modes. By studying the highest pragmatic principle --- the principle of appropriateness, the thesis expounds the effective strategies to properly restructure the modal politeness by adapting to psychological context, context of social interaction, context of culture of the target text. The studies prove that the appropriate reproduction of modal politeness is the important approach to realize cross culture communications, which further confirms the effectiveness of the dynamic faithfulness principle of modality translation.In conclusion part, the author summarizes the key points studied in the thesis, demonstrating the main findings, inadequacies and problems which need to be studied in the future. The author emphasizes that the dynamic faithfulness principle of modality translation is convincing and effective which will be of reference value to further studies of the translation of mood and evaluation. The present study will improve theoretical construction of translation, enrich the applicable studies of systemic functional linguistics and will be of significance to translation practice.