The SFL by Halliday proposes that language is a social semiotics and is the source and potential of meaning and is the big system consisting of varieties of semantic sub-systems. Many researches have extended to the discourse analysis by the application of the SFL. Many scholars at home or abroad have applied SFL to translation studies, for instance, Professor Huang Guowen has made the metafunctional analyses of poetry translation and has believed that SFL is helpful to translation studies. Meanwhile, many researches have proved the applicability and feasibility of SFL to translation studies. This thesis also makes a comparative analysis of a Tang poem titled "Song You Ren" with its ten English versions from the perspective of the context theory and three metafunctions in SFL.The thesis has two goals. One is to analyze and contrast the Chinese poem "Song You Ren" and its ten English versions; the other is to provide a new angle for translation criticism to see how to appreciate C-E translation, especially poetic translation from the aspect of SFL.The research method used in the thesis is to apply the context theory and three metafunctions to make a systematical analysis of the ST and TTs, based on the flexible concept of equivalence put forward by Halliday. In the aspect of context theory, the thesis makes a comparison between the ST and TT from the perspectives of structure and rhyme& rhythm by application of the knowledge of schematic structure and realization patterns of genre/context of culture. In the aspect of three metafunctional theories, it makes a comparative analysis of the ST and TTs at the three levels of ideational function, interpersonal function and textual function in the way of top-down and bottom-up. Through the detailed and systematic comparison between the ST and TT, the thesis not only shows the equivalences existing between them, but also shows the differences between them. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve the completely three-dimensional equivalence between the ST and the TT in the process of translating.It is hoped that the present study will provide a good insight into the translation studies, and it can help us re-survey the issues about C-E translation, especially poem translation and provides the poetic appreciation with a new angle of SFL. |