A Systemic Functional Study Of The Poem Drinking Alone In The Moonlight And Its English Translations

In the second half of the twentieth century, many kinds of linguistics emerge and reach great achievements, among which Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) represented by Halliday gives the best performance. Since SFL studies the language in use, it provides a good theoretical assumption for translation studies. SFL views language as a social semiotic system and proposes three metafunctions of language from the perspective of language application:namely, ideational metafunction, interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction. The three metafunctions, as inherent traits in variety of language use, could analyze the language in terms of function.This dissertation attempts to conduct a systemic functional study of the poem Dinking Alone in the Moonlight and its translations and reveal that in realization of three metafunctions, the target texts (TTs) tend to keep equivalence with the source text (ST) in some aspects and turn to be different in others. Thus, the present study verifies practicality and feasibility of SFL in translation studies.According to the analysis, in terms of ideational metafuntion, TTs tend to stay the same with the ST in the choice of process, participant as well as circumstantial elements in transitivity system of the experiential function. However, since the circumstantial element is a kind of additional minor process, subsidiary to the main one, some TTs attempt to turn certain processes to circumstances. Most of TTs construct the same kind of logical relationship, while some of them seem to make the parataxis between clauses in ST to hypotaxis, and whereby the contents are connected closely. With regard to the interpersonal metafuntion, most of the Subjects referring to the poet himself are omitted in the poem, and all the TTs resume Subjects in the Mood system. As far as the tense is concerned, though there is no tense in Chinese verbs, the poet is more likely to adopt the present tense to generalize the poet’s experience and affection. Almost all the translators apply present tense in line with the ST. TTs successfully choose the right modal items to express the modalization and modulation in Modality system. However, from the point of the textual function, TTs tend to apply different Theme and Rheme with the ST and increase cohesive devices to achieve qualified and integrated English text.