Translation Assessment Of The Aria Maoqiang In Sandalwood Death-in Light Of Functional Linguistics

The systematic research of translation assessment from the functionalist perspective at abroad begins in the 1970 s,whose representatives are Reiss' s text typology based on Bühler's classification of language functions and House's translation quality assessment model based on Halliday's Functional Linguistics.Similar researches at home started relatively later than that.The first one who discusses on E-C/C-E translation from the perspective of metafunctions in Functional Linguistics is Hu Zhuanglin.The first one who applies the theory in practical research of translation assessment is Huang Guowen.By reference to the research results at home and abroad,Si Xianzhu proposed the first systematic and operable translation quality assessment model in China in 2004.Through the amendments for twice in 2007 and 2016,the model has been increasingly integrative in its operation procedures and assessment results.In recent years,there have been more and more researches of translation assessment following the approach.However,the language materials of such researches are most concerned with some classic texts like famous novels in the period of Republic of China and well-known ancient poems.The similar translation studies of contemporary literary works are needed to bring “new blood” for the field.Howard Goldblatt is the chief translator of contemporary Chinese literature widely acknowledged in the world,whose efforts introduced Mo Yan to the globe and sent him to the podium of Nobel Prize in literature.Sandalwood Death of its English version is the latest work published in 2013 through the cooperation between the two masters.With the popularity of Mo Yan in the field of literature,the novel of its English version also catch the attention from the researchers in translation studies.However,the most of such studies are concerned with individual phenomenon in the novel of its English version.The systematic researches of the novel as a whole or some parts in it with “equivalence” as the most important standard in translation are few.Therefore,our task in this thesis is to make assessments of Goldblatt's translation in selected texts,three passages of aria Maoqiang,by reference to Si's translation model and to make a systematic demonstration of merits and possible demerits in the selected texts.Based on the research background and tasks,our questions are proposed as follows:(1)To what degree the translator,Goldblatt,achieved semantic equivalence and cognitive equivalence in the ideational and interpersonal dimensions while translating aria Maoqiang,and what quantitative relationship the semantic equivalence and cognitive equivalence have with each other?(2)How quality of Goldblatt's translation of selected texts from aria Maoqiang is judged based on the relationship,and how high or poor the translation quality is?(3)Is there any demerit in the translation?The object of the research is the translated text of aria Maoqiang and how to choose sample text is a crutially important.The choice of texts in the research followed the classification standards of text typology.In consideration of the reality that practically produced texts are different in “typicality” of text type,three expressive texts in aria Maoqiang including one most typical expressive text and two most atypical ones which deviate from their prototype in different directions,i.e.an expressive text by informative means and an expressive text by appellative means,were selected as the target texts by following a thinking pattern of “extreme value”,so that the assessment results would be as representative as they could.In analysis of target texts,the theories of register and metafunctions in Functional Linguistics and the grammatical system for realization of metafunctions were used as the basic instruments to explore the deviance and negative equivalence by reference to the translation quality assessment model proposed by Si Xianzhu in 2007.In addition,the quantitative method was introduced into the research appropriately to calculate the degree of equivalence for the precision and visibility of final assessment results.Through the research,it's found that the frequency of-deviance and-equivalence in target texts is generally lower than the frequency of deviant cases and that the degrees of cognitive equivalence is mostly higher than semantic equivalence,which displays the translator's profound expertise in the Chinese language and flexibility in dealing with the specific problems during translation.Through statistics and comparison of semantic equivalence and cognitive equivalence in metafunction,we found the translation of the former two types of target texts is successful as a whole with some minor failures.The failures in their translation can be categorized as three: problem in reference including misuse of personal pronouns and vague/erroneous reference;mistake related to context like tense and conditions;erroneous logical associations.The translation of the third target text,i.e.expressive text by appellative means,is obviously defective.Because the defect occurs due to the misinterpretation of situational context,i.e.the translator's confusion of tenor,it's a kind of covert deviance difficult to be found solely through the grammatical analysis of mood,modality or appraisal system.The change of directly quoted source text into indirectly quoted target text transferred the emphasis of tenor from the relation between characters inside the novel to the relation between author and readers,which drives the readers out of the context in the novel.According to the theory of verbal behavioral framework,contexts determines form and forms realize functions,and the tenor in situational context is directly connected with interpersonal function.Therefore,the confusion of tenor will definitely cause the distortion of interpersonal meaning,whose manifestation at clausal level is the translation of all implicit first/second personal pronouns and possessive pronouns into the third personal ones and thereby causing a higher degree of SE than CE in the interpersonal dimension.For such reason,we think that the translation is unfaithful to the source text.The research enriched the empirical studies of translation assessment in light of Functional Linguistics and,meanwhile,provided a brand new and more comprehensive perspective to survey the merits and demerits in Howard Goldblatt's translation,by reference to which readers who are interested in contemporary literature can get a better appreciation of similar C-E works.