Textual Equivalence Between Translation And The Original On The Basis Of Textual Metafunction

Systemic Functional Grammar regards practical application of languages as research objects. Generally speaking, translation is also an act of verbal communication. By this token, Systemic Functional Grammar’s guidance for translation is quite self-evident. In1992, British translation theorist Mona Baker discusses that how to achieve translation equivalence at textual level on the basis of some terms in Systemic Functional Grammar, such as thematic structure and cohesion, etc. in her book named In Other Words:A Coursebook of Translation.Moby Dick, which is written by American writer Herman Melville, has been highly praised by numerous literary critics as the greatest novel ever among his works. This novel depicts a story that the captain Ahab takes revenge on a white whale Moby Dick for it has broken his leg; the captain keeps hunting down the whale and perishes together with it in the end. Melville by and large applies two widely-used writing skills of literary"work in the19th century in the novel, and they are symbolism and irony respectively. He makes full use of historical allusions to demonstrate the whaling industry of the capitalism in the19th century. Therefore, Moby Dick is able to well reflect the extreme cruelty within the whaling industry and the characteristics of the era back then. This thesis selects two Chinese translation versions from Cao Yong and Ji Xusheng as corpus to compare these two versions with the source language text from the perspectives of textual metafunction in Systemic Functional Grammar, aiming to discuss the achievement of textual equivalence in two Chinese versions and analyze the translation methods and techniques that each translator chooses in order to restore the original thoughts on the basis of textual equivalence. The selections of translation strategy are quite different in these versions. Cao Yong’s version adheres to be faithful to the original as possible as he can:Ji Xusheng’s version claims that translator’s subjectivity should be demonstrated in the translation. These two different translation strategies result in two different reproductions. Within the framework of textual metafunction theory, discourse analysis not only provides a quicker way for translators to comprehend the central ideas of one source text and also helps them with better conveyance of the original thoughts. This thesis is mainly designed to discuss which translation techniques are more advisable and which translation version conveys the original thoughts better on the basis of textual equivalence.