A Study On C-E Translation Of Honggaoliang Jiazu In Light Of Ideational Grammatical Metaphor

Honggaoliang Jiazu is the masterpiece of Mo Yan, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. With the unique writing style and deep-rooted cultural ambience, this novel is favored by a majority of Chinese readers. Its English version, Red Sorghum, translated by Howard Goldbaltt, a celebrated American expert in translation, is the most acclaimed top-selling book among all of Mo Yan’s translated works. Studies on the translation of Honggaoliang Jiazu have been all the rage in recent years. Most of the studies, guided by well-known translation theories like rewriting theory, ecotranslatology, translation norm theory and others, are intended to analyze Howard Goldblatt’s translation features and the reason for the popularity of Red Sorghum in western countries.In contrast, the number of research literature probing into translation practice in light of linguistic theories is scarce. Translation is the conversion between two cultures as well as between two languages. It is much convenient for a translator to find out proper translation strategies by analyzing the differences between SL and TL in terms of lexicogrammatical and semantic levels when guided by linguistic theories.Ideational grammatical metaphor is one branch of Halliday’s grammatical metaphor, with interpersonal grammatical metaphor being another branch. The former, being associated with semantic translation, corresponds to ideational function in functional linguistics. The latter, being associated with pragmatic translation, corresponds to interpersonal function. Considering that the selection of the research text is Howard Goldblatt’s translation version of Mo Yan’s novel Honggaoliang Jiazu, the writer tends to probe into its features of semantic translation, and find out feasible translation strategies in the process of C-E translaiton in light of ideational grammatical metaphor.The core content in this thesis is the analysis of C-E translation in Honggaoliang Jiazu based on ideational grammatical metaphor. To achieve this goal, the writer conducts the analysis from two aspects: nominalization and metaphor of transitivity, with each being subdivided into three minor aspects. The part of nominalization is mainly concerned with the translation features in C-E translation under three conditions: regarding processes as things, regarding attributes as things, regarding conditions as things. In combination with relevant translation cases, each part unfolds detailed analysis. Metaphor of transitivity is mainly concerned with the transference between several types of processes taking place in C-E translation of Honggaoliang Jiazu. Those processes include the material process, mental process, relational process and existential process. On this basis, the thesis points out that in the process of C-E translation, the translator should consider packaging short Chinese clauses and transforming them into metaphorized English expressions by means of nominalization and transferences between transitivity processes. After that, the author concludes three feasible ways for guiding C-E translation in light of ideational grammatical metaphor: packing into nominalized expression, adjustment of syntactic structure, and simplification, all of which would have a guiding significance to future C-E translation.Facts have proved that it is possible for a translator to interpret and rewrite the original text in light of ideational grammatical metaphor either in E-C translation or C-E translation. Halliday’s ideational grammatical metaphor provides a brand-new angle for the translator to look at language, and serves as a good guidance to translation practices. Though the thesis probes into C-E translation from a new perspective, there are still limitations, in view of which it is hoped that more and more scholars would apply linguistic theories into translation studies in order to expand the researching field for translation theory and practice.