Research On The Translation Of Modal Meanings From Chinese To English In Political Discourse From The Perspective Of Systemic Functional Linguistics

"It is significant that the Book Expo introduces President Xi Jinping's book.The Governance of China,to an American audience.",Henry Kissinger,former U.S.Secretary of State,noted at Book Expo America(BEA),on 28th,May,2015.Besides,Robert Lawrence Kuhn,chairman of the Kuhn Foundation,spoke that "the book's popularity is unprecedented over the past four decades" during the symposium of "Xi Jinping:The Governance of China" at BEA.Such remarks suggest the significance of the book and the high-caliber quality of its English translation,thus indicating the meaning of the research on the Xi's book,a major windo" to tell Chinese story in a global way.In addition,the exact use of modality brings the speaker's subjectivity into play,because the "modal element expresses the particular role that the speaker has chosen to adopt in the situation and the role or role option that he has chosen to assign to the hearer"(Halliday,1978,p.46).Hence,the function of modality also makes the research important.Generally,this research investigated the changes of four modal variables between Chinese and English modality systems in the English version,analyzed the potential contributory factors behind those changes,and summarized translation strategies of modal meanings so as to better support translators and interpreters to tell good China's stories and convey the voice of China to the world.Drawing on the theory of Halliday's Systemic Functional Linguistics(1994,2000,2008,2013)and Chinese modality(Hu,1989;Ma,1992,2005;Peng,2000;Peng,2007:Xu.2007),I carried out comparative analyses on whether and how the four modal variables transferred,including modal orientation,modal type,modal value and modal polarity and on possibly why those changes were changed.The research applied two computer tools,Tmxmall and Sublime Text,so as to collect,categorize and count modal data,thus reflecting a noticeable trend on how four modal variables transferred from Chinese to English(C-E)in the book.Besides,the research method employed in the thesis is qualitative one by illustrating the potential contributory factors for the modal transfers.Ultimately,I came to a conclusion that includes two core aspects in the C-E translation.First,there are four changing patterns:1)a tendency on modal orientation from subjectivity to objectivity;2)a change on modal type from modulation to modalization;3)a transfer from modal words with high value to those with median value;4)a trend from negative polarity to positive polarity.Second,more important,possible contributory factors for such changing patterns primarily include,first,confirming to the modal linguistic feature of the target text,second,realizing the interpersonal function through changing linguistic forms.This research underlined the changing patterns of modal variables or the tendency of asymmetric transfers,discussed the modal tendency of C-E translation,summarized the limitations of previous modal research,and further researched possible factors of modal changes in translation,in order to support translators to better render modal meanings and move forward the comparative modality research between Chinese and English.