Pre-systemic Foundations for Translation Studies by Wang, Bo; Ma, Yuanyi; Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M.;

Short description:

Bringing together a collection of pre-SFL and embryonic SFL publications from 1935 to 1969, this book highlights a range of works that directly contributed to the conceptualization and development of translation studies empowered by SFL.

Long description:

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) has been concerned with translation studies since its very inception. Such an interest in translation can be traced back to concepts and theories in the pre-SFL and embryonic SFL stages, such as scale and category theory, Firthian linguistics, and even Malinowski?s empirical field work in the Trobriand Islands. Pre-systemic Foundations for Translation Studies thus uncovers papers that represent the early engagement between linguistics and translation studies even prior to the development of SFL.

As linguists and educators, Bo Wang, Yuanyi Ma, and Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen divide the discussion into four parts, covering studies by key figures such as Bronis?aw Malinowski, J.R. Firth, M.A.K. Halliday, J.C. Catford, Jean Ure, and Jeffrey Ellis. Part I includes works by Bronis?aw Malinowski and J.R. Firth, who have laid the foundations for Halliday?s SFL. Part II documents Halliday?s publications, focusing on his machine translation project started in the mid-1950s led by Margaret Masterman, demonstrating the significance of rank scale in translation studies and discussing the relevance of translation in the context of language education. Part III collects two chapters by J.C. Catford, who examines the significance of translation equivalence and translation shift and locates translation studies within a general linguistic framework informed by Halliday?s scale and category theory. Finally, Part IV captures Jean Ure and Jeffrey Ellis?s application of scale and category theory, the precursor of SFL, to compare the source text and the target text in translation, locating translation as a domain within comparative descriptive linguistics.

This book explores the thematic chronology and intertextuality embedded in the interplay between translation studies and SFL.

Table of Contents:

Figures
Tables
Acknowledgments

Introduction
Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen, Bo Wang & Yuanyi Ma

Part I: Bronis?aw Malinowski and J.R. Firth
Chapter 1: The translation of untranslatable words
Bronis?aw Malinowski
Chapter 2: Linguistic analysis and translation
J.R. Firth
Chapter 3: Linguistics and translation
J.R. Firth

Part II: M.A.K. Halliday
Chapter 4: The linguistic basis of a mechanical thesaurus
M.A.K. Halliday
Chapter 5: Some aspects of systematic description and comparison in grammatical analysis
M.A.K. Halliday
Chapter 6: Typology and the exotic
M.A.K. Halliday
Chapter 7: Linguistics and machine translation
M.A.K. Halliday
Chapter 8: Comparison and translation
M.A.K. Halliday, Angus McIntosh & Peter Strevens

Part III: J.C. Catford
Chapter 9: Translation equivalence
J.C. Catford
Chapter 10: Translation shifts
J.C. Catford

Part IV: Jean Ure and Jeffrey Ellis
Chapter 11: Types of translation and translatability
Jean Ure
Chapter 12: Comparative descriptive linguistics
Jeffrey Ellis
Chapter 13: Somn: Sleep
An exercise in the use of descriptive linguistic techniques in literary translation
Jean Ure, Alexander Rodger & Jeffrey Ellis
Part I: A presentation of the source text
Jean Ure & Jeffrey Ellis
Part II: An exercise in style
Alexander Rodger
Part III: A lexical comparison
Jean Ure
Index