Clause Translation From The Perspective Of Clause Relations

M.A.K.Halliday's functional grammar discusses how to employ functional theories for an explanation of texts by making choices from available syntax structures and words based on the expressions given by a language.As a crucial component of functional grammar,clause relations pay attention to analyzing and demonstrating relationship between clauses at both grammatical and semantic levels.Clause is an important constituent of sentences,indispensable for expressed meaning of a language.Language is a resource that creates meaning and short story is one form of language.Due to differences in language use,mode of thinking and habits of articulation,it is hard for Chinese readers to perceive the characters and the author's emotional sentiments as they are actually presented in short stories written in the original English language.The short story Katu is penned with plenty of clause complexes,including dialogues between characters – which brings about difficulties in translation on grammatical as well as semantical levels.Clause relations theory then may help clarify relationship between clauses,identify grammatical structure and explain semantic chunks – so that the semantic structure of the source text can be analyzed.However,the clause relations theory by Halliday is proposed under an ideal situation,while short stories in reality may have more complicated clause structures such as a combination of two kinds of clause relations.To maximize the original short story's aesthetic and artistic values,this thesis proposes two options in translation,namely,the clause relations in the short story can be completely followed,or partially followed.To clause relations which completely comply with Halliday's model,the strategy of thorough duplication of the original clause relations can maximize the short story's semantic meanings;to the clause relations which do not comply with Halliday's model,the strategy of partial modification is adopted,for a better rendering of characterization and the author's sentiments.