A Study On Alma Mater Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalism

Alma Mater as a text type is seldom examined in the translation circle. This paper attempts to provide an insight into the study of the translation of Alma Mater in the light of functionalism. Based on Katharina Reiss's text typology, the author studies the text type of Alma Mater and finds that Alma Mater incorporates four text types proposed by Reiss: expressive, informative, operative and audio-media text type. The author mainly discusses the first three text types to figure out a possible strategy for translating Alma Mater. In Alma Mater the expressive text type plays the most important role and next comes the informative and operative text types. Hence in order to achieve an effective translation of an Alma Mater, translators should properly interpret the three text types respectively in the target language and in the mean time balance the language functions of them.Firstly, the linguistic and aesthetic form of Alma Mater should be adequately presented in the target language since expressive text type focuses on the form. The aesthetic form contains many factors, in which the rhyme, rhythm and figures of speech are most closely related to the lyrics of Alma Mater. Secondly, for the informative text type, the information and facts mentioned in the lyrics of Alma Mater should be faithfully delivered. Translators should first aim at preserving the semantic equivalence, transmitting referential content. Thirdly, the language of the operative text type is dialogic, functioning to make an appeal to text receiver. Therefore, it is required that the target text should elicit desired responses, creating for its readers the same responses as those of the source text readers. In addition to theoretical analyses, the author also applies them to specific examples. Alma Mater of Soochow University serves as the primary case for studying, and other Alma Maters like those of Jinling University and Zhejiang University are also included.The translation of Alma Mater is rarely studied. This paper accomplishes an initiative study on it and fills such a blank. In the end the author works out a possible strategy for translating Alma Mater in which the three translation approaches for the expressive, informative and operative text types are systematically integrated.