Appraisal Resources In E-C Translation

This thesis describes and analyzes the translation phenomena of appraisal resources in E-C translation with the aid of Martin’s Appraisal Theory. Appraisal resources are crucial to discourses so studies on the translation of appraisal resources can provide guidance for translating activities. As to China, E-C translation is demanded in large amount so it is selected as the research subject.The analysis is corpus-based.24texts in genres of news report, novel and advertisement and their corresponding translations are all authentic. Notably, the translations are regarded as’models’or at least, acceptable ones. This can ensure the translation phenomena observed would provide helpful clues for future translations. The materials belong to informative, expressive and vocative texts respectively and almost cover all the types of texts. The study attempts to discover the common strategies adopted in the E-C translation of appraisal resources by solving the following questions:(a)How do appraisal resources appear in source text and target text?(b)Are there any significant differences of appraisal resources in source text and its corresponding target text?(c)If there are differences, what contributes to them?The analysis is carried out qualitatively and quantitatively. Taking Appraisal Theory as the analytical tool, the study first marks out all the possible appraisal resources. For different types of texts, distributions of appraisal resources are remarkably different. Paired Samples Test provided by SPSS17.0finds the compositions of appraisal resources in STs and TTs do not have significant differences. However, the appraisal resources in TTs might deviate from those in STs at lexical level. Examples taken from the corpus show the translator adopt four possible strategies in translating appraisal resources at lexical level. The stances taken in TTs may align with or go against those in STs and the appraisal resources may be reduced or increased. This indicates equivalence at the level of lexis is not strictly required and translators are bestowed with freedom to adjust appraisal resources. There are many causes for such changes, such as the translation brief, the translator, ideal readers, language and culture. Besides, the thesis discusses the prosodic movement of texts, revealing the similarity that STs and TTs have at textual level.