Corpus-based Study Of Chinese "Keyi" Phrases As Modals And Its English Translation

The study of linguistic modality dates back to the ancient Greek era.However,previous researches fail to explore specific Chinese modal verbs.This thesis mainly focuses on the typical Chinese modal verb "keyi" and its English translation.This thesis studies the translation of "keyi" phrases under the classification of Palmer's modality system with the reference to the C-E translations in the parallel corpus developed by Center for Chinese Linguistics of Peking University(CCL).Besides,this thesis also makes a comparison between two English versions of Lu Xun's works,which are produced by an English-speaking translator and a Chinese-speaking one respectively.Results show that "keyi" phrases have different English correspondences:modals and non-modals.Sometimes the meaning of the phrases may not be linguistically represented in the English version.The English modal verb "can" is the most likely correspondence of"keyi" phrases,which is accountable for in line with Halliday's theory of modality value.In addition,this thesis finds that there are significant differences in the Yangs' and Julia Lovell's translations of the same text.the Yangs' are more faithful to the original text,which reproduce the Chinese way of thinking featuring an integration of subject and object consciousnesses.In contrast,Julia Lovell's translations are more like free translation,which embody her English way of thinking featuring a dichotomy of subject and object consciousnesses.The differences between the two suggest that the translator's style of translation is influenced by the characteristics of his mother tongue.This thesis provides a certain reference for the study of modal verbs and their translation.