Construction Of Major Character Roles In The Scarlet Letter From The Appraisal Theory Perspective

Hawthorne is one of the most influential writers in the19th century. And his masterpiece, The Scarlet Letter is an immortal classic work in the literature history. This novel depicts vividly the contradiction between the puritan confinements, persecution of humanity and people’s natural tendency to pursue worldly happiness, via portraying Hester, Dimmesdale, Chillingworth, Pearl and telling twisty story happened between them. Due to its emphasis on the psychological activities, the personalities of four main characters are with diverse connotations. So this novel turns out to be full of interpersonal meanings.James R. Martin’s appraisal theory system is the further development of systemic functional linguistics. Halliday’s original Systemic Functional Linguistics (before the appraisal theory has been created) could not provide a complete system for seeing authors’/readers’or speakers’/listeners’views and attitude to situation via language. In order to better understand the interpersonal meaning in monologue and the expression of feelings in discourse, Marin created the Appraisal Theory system together with his colleagues.Since the1930s when it was first introduced into China, the Chinese re-translation of The Scarlet Letter has been never stopped. But, among previous Chinese translation studies, there are no scholars who pay close attention to the affection and emotional reactions of the writer and readers. The paper chooses Xiong Yu-peng and Yao Nai-qiang’s version published by Beijing Yanshan Publishing House in2006, and Su Fu-zhong’s version published by Shanghai Translation Publishing House in2011, as translation materials to be compared with the source text. From the description of four main characters, the Appraisal resources in some selected paragraphs are collected as data to be case studied in comparison with the original version. The application of Appraisal theory to evaluating Chinese Translation of The Scarlet Letter offers a new perspective to assess and guide translation.