Modality System In Pride And Prejudice And Its Chinese Translation: From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Grammar

It is difficult to see how translation theories can move beyond the subjective and normative evaluation of texts without drawing heavily on linguistics. Translating relies on the analysis of both the ST (source text) and the TT (target text) and the study of translation needs to borrow the relevant theories of text analysis. This thesis is a tentative investigation into the conversations of Pride and Prejudice in the framework of systemic functional grammar with a view to revealing the features of the modality in the ST and whether this will be reflected in the corresponding Chinese translation.Based on Halliday's categorization of modal realizations, the author conducts a comparison between modal expressions in conversations of Pride and Prejudice and their corresponding Chinese translation. The core of the study concentrates on identification and comparison of the type, the orientation, and the polarity of modal expressions between the ST and the TT. In analyzing the corpus, operational rules are adopted from Wang Peng which he applied to analyze his corpus in his PhD dissertation in 2004.The study shows that, in the ST, the density of modality is remarkable and their function is very complex. Modal operators and modal adjuncts account for 87.5% of the total modal expressions. This highlights the significance of further analysis of modal operators and modal adjuncts in conversations of the ST and the TT. The analysis of modal operators and modal adjuncts shows that modal operators occur most frequently in types of Probability, comparatively little in Obligation and Inclination and they are restricted in Usuality; modal adjuncts occur at various but functionally significant locations throughout the clause, modifying some other modal operators or modal adjuncts. Through concrete examples and a comparative study, modal operators, modal adverbs, and sentence final particles are found being used to signal modality in the TT. Moreover, modal operators in English are more likely to be translated differently than modal adjuncts. That is to say there is no total equivalence between the ST and the TT, which may arise from the difference between the two language systems and the two different cultures.The study suggests that the grammatical features such as modality system are very helpful in looking critically at how speakers attempt to achieve their purpose in their context. Without a correct understanding of the modality in the ST, it probably causes problems in translating it into the target language. Conversation is multifunctional, being of great help to portray characters and develop the plot of the fiction. Conversation translation, accordingly, has been an important part in fiction translation.