Translation Quality Assessment Of Modal Meaning In Chinese Legislative Texts Based On Modality Theory

The thesis explores the translation quality assessment of modal meaning in Chinese legislative texts based on Halliday's modality theory.The aim of the thesis is to identify the problems with translation of modal meaning in legislative texts and shed light on how to improve the translation quality of legal texts through the assessment.In Halliday's modality theory,modality expresses speaker's or author's attitude towards the proposition or the information exchanged.It is the main semantic carrier to convey interpersonal meta-function and can reflect the interpersonal relationship between the two parties concerned.According to Halliday,modality can be classified into two types:modalisation and modulation.He also establishes three basic modal values:high,median and low.During the process of legal translation,the interpersonal function of the target text should be equivalent to that of the source text so as to preserve the legal intent of the source text author and guarantee that both the target text and the source text have the same legal effect in legal practice.Adopting the descriptive and contrastive analytical approach,the present study carries out the translation quality assessment of modal meaning in Chinese legislative texts at the lexical level by the employment of two parameters:modal type and modal value in modality theory.The analysis reveals that a series of factors affect the translation quality including speech function,modal type and modal value.The result shows that the translation quality of modalisation is superior to that of the modulation and modal value hasn't been given enough attention to.In view of this,the author put forward some suggestions to improve the translations of legal texts.