A Comparative Study On The Translation Of Wang Xifeng's Speech From The Perspective Of Interpersonal Function

To describe the character's image and trait is one of the key techniques in the creation of a novel. The author always displays the character's speech of individuality to reflect his/her image and character. It cannot be denied that translation is basically the switch between two languages. It is a crucial problem for the target language readers to understand the character's image by reading his/her speech. Wang Xifeng, one of the most outstanding characters in the famous Chinese classical novel Hongloumeng, is well known for her capability of dealing with different people on different occasions. Many scholars have studied Wang Xifeng from various aspects. The theoretical basis for this paper is one of the three metafunctions of Functional Grammar—Interpersonal Function headed by M.A.K. Halliday. The paper tries to make a tentative study on the translation of Wang Xifeng's speech in Hongloumeng by a comparative analysis of Hawkes' version and Yang Xianyi's version, (hereinafter referred as Hawkes' version and Yang's version)This paper begins from the interpersonal function of Functional Grammar, which reflects the interactive relationship of the speaker and the listener in certain contexts and also reflects the speaker's social status, identity, personality, education, attitudes,etc. Mood, modality, key, and evaluation are the main realizations of interpersonal function. The use of language depends on the context. Contextual factors are divided into fields, tenor, and mode, in which tenor is closely related to the subject of this paper.By a comparative analysis of Wang Xifeng's speech between Hawkes' version and Yang's versions on the basis of interpersonal function, this thesis try to demonstrate that the translated version should reflect Wang Xifeng's social status, identity, personality and on particular occasions which properly correspond to the original. Finally the author concludes that in translating the character's speech in novels, interpersonal function can largely conduct the translators to concern the switch of languages from mood, modality, key, evaluation and some other aspects. That will greatly avoid the loss of interpersonal meaning in translation.