A Contrastive Analysis Of The Two English Versions Of The Analects Of Confucius From The Perspective Of Metafunction

Halliday’s Systemic Functional Grammar has been growing mature through continuous amendments and development. Among the ever increasing contents of research, the tendency is application of Functional Grammar in discourse analysis.Based on the theory of metafunction, which includes ideational metafunction,interpersonal metafunction and textual metafunction, its capability of valuing language is on the increase. A text is a composite entity of according the theory of three metafunctions. As one of Chinese famous works, The Analects appealed to many scholars at home and abroad because of its special characteristic of language and profound meaning.this dissertation proposes the consistence between Chinese and English language in terms of ideational and interpersonal functions, and the divergence in terms of textual function.This paper includes six parts.The first part is introduction, presents the research background, research purpose, research significance, the structure of the thesis.The second part is the literature review, this paper introduces the two translation versions of the Analects, and system functional linguistics applied in the translation of the analysis of research status both at home and abroad.The third part is the theoretical basis of this paper, presenting the important concept of three metafunctions, and analyzing the theory and the basis of the concept.The fourth part is the important chapter of this paper, to analyzing the translation respectively from the concept of function, interpersonal function and textual function theory.The fifth part is conclusion, summarizing his findings and the deficiencies.The purpose of this study is to study the English translation of the Analects from the three metafunctions in systemic functional linguistics theory. The macro level,different social ideology, culture background of texts have effects on the translation of the the Analects; From the perspective of macro-level, different cultural background may influence the translation of Chinese classics. From the perspective of micro-level,translators have their own translation strategies. So readers can have a conclusion on these two versions according to the translator’s cognitive level of Chinese culture. All these help improve the broadcasting of Chinese traditional culture and promote the communication between Chinese and the world. This paper makes a comparative analysis of metafunctions between The Analects and its two English versions, with Functional Grammar as the aid.The aim is to test the feasibility and scientificalness ofFunctional Grammar in Chinese-English translation studies.