Acomparative Study Of Poem Drinking Wine V And Its Different English Translations A Systemic Functional Approach

Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar came into prominence in 1960s and it provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of discourse by proposing three metafunctions: ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function.This paper aims at providing a new perspective for the comparative study of poetry by examining the ST and TTs of Drinking Wine V from the viewpoints of SFG. Moreover, this paper also tries to discover the feasibility and practicality of SFG in poetry translation by analyzing the discourse of ST and TTs and measuring the similarities and discrepancies of them. Based on the core criterion of SFG– the metafunction, the realization of ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function in ST and TTs will be contrasted and compared to figure out the resemblance as well as the differences.It is revealed that TTs tend to parallel to the ST in process and mood system. In the thematic structure, however, translators have to distort the Theme and Rheme and supplement necessary conjunction words or cohesive devices in order to convey and deliver the poet's intention and be equivalent in semantics with the ST due to the fact that there is a great discrepancy between the structure of Chinese and English. Thus, it verifies the feasibility of scientifically applying SFG into the poetry translation study.