A Comparison Of Two Chinese Versions Of Hard Times From The Perspective Of Metafunction

From the perspective of SFL, the present thesis seeks to make a comparison and judgment of the gains and losses of two Chinese versions of Charles Dickens’Hard Times, by using Halliday’s theory of Metafunctions.It is by successful grasp of the metafunctions via good choice of linguistic devices that Hard Times, one of the reprehensive works of Dickens’, offers a panorama of people and ideas in vivid English language. Therefore the judgment of a good translation of the novel lies in the similarly successful grasp of the metafunctions by the translator and his choice of Chinese linguistic devices to represent the Dickensian world.The thesis analyses Hard Times and compares its two Chinese versions on the three dimensions of Halliday’s Metafunction Theory, namely the Ideational Function, Interpersonal Function and Textual Function. The thesis reaches the conclusion that a good knowledge of Metafunction Theory helps translators to a better grasp of the author’s original intentions in his linguistic choices and a better realization of such intentions in the translation, hence a handy tool in the translation tasks.