Realizations And Absences Of The Interpersonal Meaning In HongLouMeng And Its English Version

Functional Grammar interprets language as social semiotic system, which divides into semantic, lexico-grammatical and phonological system. The semantic system is realized by. three metafunctions of language. They are experiential, interpersonal and textual functions. Interpersonal function concerns the interactional aspect of language, which represents the speaker's attitude, status, motivation and it also expresses the role relationship associated with the situation. Interpersonal meaning is downwards realized by lexical-grammar level and phonological level, and upwards it realizes the tenor in the context of situation. Mood, modality and key are the main means to realize the interpersonal meaning. But these categories are not sufficient to provide the interpretation of the role relationship between the speakers. With more and more researches on the ways of realizing the interpersonal meaning, it is proved that other elements also realize interpersonal meaning prosodically. Martin's Appraisal Theory widens our horizon greatly, but it only focuses on the lexical level. So it is necessary to deepen the research on the realization of it in the whole text.Based on the functional grammar, this thesis will make a comparative research on the Chinese classic novel "Hong Lou Meng" and its English version "A Dream of Red Mansions" translated by Yang Hsien-yi and Gladys Yang, trying to find the categories which carry the interpersonal meaning but are not paid fully attention, such as the address system, the verbs, the choice of the subject, rhetorical questions and subjunctive mood with a detailed explanation and analysis. Through the comparative research on the expressions of the interpersonal meaning between the two languages, the paper makes further exploration of the functional grammar.The other focus of this paper is to observe how the translation, as a mediator, realizes the complex interpersonal relationships in the original work from the functional approach. Different from the traditional study, this paper is to examine the realization of the interpersonal meaning in the translation on the three aspects (status, contact and affect) of the tenor, which is one of the variables of the situation context. More importantly, factors affecting the absences of the interpersonal meanings are briefly generalized and analyzed. The paper will provide new perspective for the translation study.This tentative research will have the potential significance not only to discourse analysis, but also to language teaching patterns, language acquisition, stylistics and other related fields.