A Systemic-Functional Approach To E-C Translation Of Journalistic English On International Politics

It is found that unnatural and awkward E-C translation of journalistic English often appears in Chinese newspapers. This thesis is an attempt to apply Systemic-Functional Linguistics to a diagnostic study of E-C translation of a sub-variety of journalistic English梛ournalistic English on international politics (JEIP)梖rom a textual perspective, with a view to improving the quality of its E-C translation.It is held that a TEXT is a piece of language used in certain context of situation. The three elements of the situational context namely, 'field', 'tenor' and 'mode' motivate respectively the Ideational, Interpersonal and Textual meanings, which are realized by linguistic elements at the lexico-grammatical level. So a good translation has to a 'textual equivalence' of the source language text.The data in this thesis includes six texts, which are specific instances of JEIP. The three English texts are taken from The New York Times, and the three Chinese texts are excerpts of their translations published on Can Kao Xiao Xi ( 《参考消息》 ). Upon the application of SFL, it has been found that the problems of E-C translation of JEIP lie mainly 1) at the clause level when clause is viewed as 'message', 'exchange' and 'representation'; 2) above the clause, i. e., in clause complex; 3) around the clause, i.e., with regard to cohesion and coherence.At the clause level, the unmarked and marked information focus should be handled properly, for they realize the Textual meaning. Both Temporal and Modal Finites in the Mood structure, which are easily neglected in E-C translation, should be paid attention to, for they realize the Interpersonal meaning. And the Transitivity structure, realizing the Ideational meaning, is useful in dividing long and complicated English sentences.At the level of clause complex, the embedded logic-semantic relations such as Exemplification, Clarification and Extension should be revealed in the target language text, by means of such punctuation marks as dash and colon.At the level of cohesion and coheeferences, Ellipsis, Conjunction, Synonym, Referential Chain and Thematic Progresrence, such cohesive devices as Reference, including Personal and Demonstrative Rsion are important in achieving coherence in the target language text.