Appraisal Theory is a part of the interpersonal metafunction in Systemic Functional Linguistics to reveal the speaker＇s attitudes and positionings. Some scholars in recent years have introduced this theory to the Chi...Appraisal Theory is a part of the interpersonal metafunction in Systemic Functional Linguistics to reveal the speaker＇s attitudes and positionings. Some scholars in recent years have introduced this theory to the Chinese reader and applied it to the study of different genres, but up to now, very little has been done to test this newly developed theory in translation studies. This paper attempts to use the Appraisal Theory as a tool to investigate speaker＇s positioning in ST （source text） and TT （target text）. The translations of part of the Q＆A （Question＆Answer） section of the Vice President Cheney＇s speech at Fudan University and their STs will be investigated in the present study. The source and target texts are first described in the appraisal theoretical framework and then compared to find out the differences in terms of the speaker＇s positioning in ST and TT. Finally, a discussion is carried out to explore possible reasons that caused the speaker＇s changed positioning from ST and TT. Our findings indicate that translator＇s role, linguistic characteristics, and translation purpose might all contribute to speaker＇s changed positioning.展开更多
文摘Appraisal Theory is a part of the interpersonal metafunction in Systemic Functional Linguistics to reveal the speaker＇s attitudes and positionings. Some scholars in recent years have introduced this theory to the Chinese reader and applied it to the study of different genres, but up to now, very little has been done to test this newly developed theory in translation studies. This paper attempts to use the Appraisal Theory as a tool to investigate speaker＇s positioning in ST （source text） and TT （target text）. The translations of part of the Q＆A （Question＆Answer） section of the Vice President Cheney＇s speech at Fudan University and their STs will be investigated in the present study. The source and target texts are first described in the appraisal theoretical framework and then compared to find out the differences in terms of the speaker＇s positioning in ST and TT. Finally, a discussion is carried out to explore possible reasons that caused the speaker＇s changed positioning from ST and TT. Our findings indicate that translator＇s role, linguistic characteristics, and translation purpose might all contribute to speaker＇s changed positioning.
