Systemic Functional Translation Studies; Theoretical Insights and New Directions; Wang Bo; Ma Yuanyi

Bo Wang [+–]

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Bo Wang received his doctoral degree from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. His research interests include systemic functional linguistics, translation studies, discourse analysis, and language description. He is co-author of Lao She’s Teahouse and Its Two English Translations (Routledge), Translating Tagore’s Stray Birds into Chinese (Routledge) and Systemic Functional Insights on Language and Linguistics (Springer). He is Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at the University of Macau, China.

Yuanyi Ma [+–]

Yuanyi Ma received her doctoral degree from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research interests include systemic functional linguistics, translation studies, discourse analysis, and language description. She is co-author of Lao She’s Teahouse and Its Two English Translations (Routledge), Translating Tagore’s Stray Birds into Chinese (Routledge) and Systemic Functional Insights on Language and Linguistics (Springer). She is an independent researcher in China.

This book offers a comprehensive account of Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS) — a research area that applies Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) to study translation, and to relate researches by scholars in the community of both SFL and translation studies. The important trends as well as contributions in SFTS are summarised. Various topics in SFTS are covered in the six chapters of this book, including the basic issues and concepts in SFTS; the relationship between SFTS, the cognate functional approaches, translation studies and translation practice; SFTS and different modes of meaning; registerial variation and SFTS; technologies and SFTS as well as a future outlook on SFTS.

The objectives of this book include to provide a comprehensive introduction to SFTS; to relate SFTS to translation studies; to summarise the important contributions and limitations of SFTS; and to offer directions for future researches in SFTS, reflecting on what is currently missing from the SFL theory.

Series: Key Concepts in Systemic Functional Linguistics

Preliminaries

List of Tables ix

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

List of Figures xi-xii

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Abbreviations and Symbols xiii

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Abbreviations for Interlinear Glossing xv

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Acknowledgements xvii

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Foreword xix

Erich Steiner

Saarland University

Erich Steiner, born 1954 in Heidelberg/ Germany, studied English and German Philology in Freiburg, Saarbrücken, Cardiff, Reading and London (GB), and has held posts in Saarbrücken, Luxembourg and Darmstadt. He has served as Head of Department, Pro-Dean and Dean at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, and has received calls from several other universities. Since 1990, he has been Chair of English Linguistics and Translation Studies, later on English Translation Studies, Dept. of Language Science and Technology, University of Saarland, Saarbrücken. His major research interests include Functional Linguistics, Translation Theory and Comparative Linguistics, as well as Empirical Linguistics more generally. He has been Visiting Professor at Rice University, Houston/ Texas, at the University of Southern California/ Los Angeles, Dublin City University, Macquarie University Sydney, the University of Technology Sydney, the University of Oslo, as well as Hong Kong Polytechnic University and City University of Hong Kong over the past 30 years.

Introduction

Introduction [+–] 1-2

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Outlines the content and readership of the book and gives summaries of each of the chapters.

Chapter 1

What is Systemic Functional Translation Studies? [+–] 3-27

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 1 orients the book with a general introduction to systemic functional translation studies (SFTS). We first explain the relationship between translation and linguistics. Then, we define SFTS, differentiate SFTS from other functional approaches to translation, and locate SFTS in the map of translation studies. Towards the end of this chapter, we present a brief history of SFTS by highlighting various important works, models, and frameworks.

Chapter 2

The Environments of Translation [+–] 29-58

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 2 outlines Matthiessen’s (2001) environments of translation, providing accounts of the six dimensions of the environments, i.e. stratification, instantiation, metafunction, rank, delicacy, and axis. Examples are given to illustrate how these dimensions work in the process of translation. We also relate translation equivalence and translation shift to the dimensions.

Chapter 3

Systemic Functional Translation Studies and the Metafunctional Modes of Meaning [+–] 59-78

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 3 views SFTS through the lens of metafunction. Translation is understood as the recreation of the four metafunctional modes of meaning through choice. The four modes of meaning include ideational meanings of the logical kind, ideational meanings of the experiential kind, interpersonal meanings, and textual meanings. Various studies in the literature are introduced from the perspective of the four metafunctions.

Chapter 4

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 4 explores the relationship between register, text type, and translation. Besides the work by German functionalist scholars, we introduce Matthiessen’s context-based functional text typology that characterizes texts according to the eight primary fields of activity. Based on Matthiessen’s classification, we conduct a survey of the text types studied in the literature.

Chapter 5

Technology-based Approaches in Systemic Functional Translation Studies [+–] 105-131

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 5 focuses on the approaches in SFTS that are closely associated with the development of translation-oriented language technology. We address three research areas, including machine translation, corpus-based approaches, and the tools for investigating translation process.

Chapter 6

Current Situation and Future Direction of Systemic Functional Translation Studies [+–] 133-147

Yuanyi Ma,Bo Wang

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Chapter 6 concludes the book by discussing some limitations in SFTS and giving some suggestions of future studies.

End Matter

Notes 149

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Bibliography 151-174

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Sources of Some Examples 175-176

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Index 177-179

Bo Wang,Yuanyi Ma

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Reviews

There is currently no monograph available in English that would attempt an up-to-date outline and a conceptual map of Systemic Functional Translation Studies on the one hand, and that would do so with particular acknowledgement of recent contributions by scholars from China on the other, where Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Hong Kong are among lively centres of activity for systemic-functionally based work on translation.

Bo Wang and Yuanyi Ma are scholars with backgrounds in Chinese linguistics and translation studies, but also, and importantly, with expertise in translating and in translation evaluation. Their book is primarily aimed at researchers and students, but I am sure that translators looking for some methodological underpinnings of their professional practice will find much that is of interest to them.
From the Introduction by Erich Steiner, Professor of English Translation Studies, Saarland University

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Systemic Functional Translation Studies

Theoretical Insights and New Directions

Bo Wang [+–]

Faculty of Arts and Humanities, University of Macau

Yuanyi Ma [+–]

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