A Comparative Analysis Of Two Translated Versions Of A Tale Of Two Cities From Register Theory

Charles Dickens is regarded as the great novelist of Victoria age,who has published nearly twenty works,among which A Tale of Two Cities is one of the best fictions of Charles Dickens.The novel is set in the French Revolution telling a story full of humanitarianism and romanticism.Since A Tale of Two Cities has come out,over twenty-five versions of Chinese translated texts can be found in the market.Due to some limitations,this thesis selects two versions interpreted by Sun Fali and Song Zhaolin respectively as data.Up till now,it has been few studies on A Tale of Two Cities from the perspective of register theory.Therefore,in order to prove that register theory is an effective tool for translation quality evaluation,this thesis is carried out in descriptive qualitative method combined with register theory from Hallidayan systemic functional grammar.In this thesis,it not only compares the advantages and disadvantages between two versions,but also offers corresponding translation of author herself for reference in the chapter four.The primary task of translation requires translators to present loyal content of the source text where any kinds of mistranslation or ellipsis are not allowed.Then translators need to concern about the participants and their interpersonal relationships.Finally,translators need to pay attention to the style of the words and the fluency of their translated texts.These three tasks are closely related to register theory,which are expressed in three aspects: field,mode and tenor.The thesis shows that Song's version is supreme to Sun's version in three ways.In terms of field equivalence,Song presents more loyal content.As for the tenor equivalence,Song offers translation with close interpersonal relationship and from the aspect of mode equivalence Song's version has higher level of fluency than Sun does.It concludes that in translation practice,three register variables are not put into separated boxes;instead they are integrated and interacted closely.