On Cross-cultural Construction Of Interpersonal Meaning In Drama Translation

According to the SFL, the text is seen as an interactive event between the author and the readers which is realized in the production and the reading of it. The interpersonal meaning lies in the relation between the writer/addresser and the reader/addressee. Since one of the major purposes of linguistic interaction is to establish and maintain a desirable interpersonal relationship, the interpersonal meaning is one of the essential dimensions in the text reconstruction. Translation as a cross-cultural communication is not merely reproduction of the source text, but the construction of a new interpersonal meaning involving new participants of interaction, the author and the target readers mediated by the translator. Since the two communicative subjects, namely, the author and the target reader are embedded with different cultures, the translation is inevitably involved in the cross-cultural construction of interpersonal meaning.The SFL perspective on translation studies in terms of interpersonal meaning sheds new light on drama translation. Drama is multi-medial text, being mainly composed of dialogues and oriented to the stage-performance. It is closely related to live speech characterized by spoken features. In addition, the reception of its readers and audience serves as the main yardstick in evaluating a drama. These inherent properties of the dramatic text differentiate drama translation as a distinctive branch of the literary translation. In light of the SFL perspective on translation studies, the cross-cultural construction of the interpersonal meaning between the author and the target readers/audience becomes the essential dimension in the investigation of drama translation.The thesis adopts the SFL interpersonal model in the examination of drama translation, which will be carried out in a case study of the Shakespearian drama Hamlet and Zhu Shenghao's version of translation. Within the framework of appraisal system which realizes the central part of the interpersonal meaning, the cross-cultural construction of the interpersonal meaning realized in the source dramatic text will be explored in terms of three subsystems, namely, Attitude, Engagement and Graduation. The drama translation will be evaluated with the criterion of whether the interpersonal meaning based on the author and the target reader/audience has been properly constructed, and whether the desirable relationship between the original author and the target reader/audience has been established. In this way, the appropriateness in the interpersonal meaning construction is established as one important parameter in assessing drama translation. To enhance the speakability and performability of the target dramatic text for a better reception in the target readers/audience and the target culture, the translator should make efforts to construct an appropriate interpersonal relationship between the author and the target readers/audience. In the construction course, the translator firstly conveys the interpersonal meaning intended by the author, secondly takes into account the reading position of the target readership, and thirdly realizes his own subjectivity in negotiation of the interpersonal meaning between the author and the target readers/audience. In both theory and practice, the investigation into the construction of interpersonal meaning in drama translation within the framework of appraisal system offers an important workable parameter for the drama translation assessment.