A Functional Stylistic Approach To Translating BBC Documentary Commentary

English documentary has become more and more popular to Chinese audiences with its unique art form, especially the documentaries produced by BBC Company, which has pure accent and rich content. It can help English learners to improve their English skills and learn British and American culture better. Commentary plays an important role in English documentary. So the translation of English documentary commentary has become very important. Functional Stylistics, one of the most influential stylistic branches, has been applied in translation studies. The functional stylistic analysis provides a better guidance for the practice of translation. This thesis attempts to analyze and translate the functional features of BBC documentary commentary and generalizes its translating methods from the perspective of Functional Stylistics.The analysis consists of three steps. Firstly, according to context theory, the materials are divided into three modes, which include expository mode, observation mode and participatory mode. Secondly, on the basis of the analysis in three metafunctions, the functional features of English documentary commentary and its differences among these three modes will be discovered. Finally, some translation methods are summarized based on these functional features. The results of the analysis indicate that some functional styles such as omission of the actor, continuous progression, circumstantial elements, etc. are motivated in their text. These functional features have led the author to summarize some translation methods such as linear translation, omission, amplification, etc. to realize the functional equivalence of translating English documentary to its Chinese version.