Systemic Functional Linguistics as a Tool of Text Analysis for Translation

Translation, ipso facto, is an understanding and a transferal of meaning from one language into another. Therefore, it may be fitting to conclude that a suitable semantic theory should underpin any attempt to that end. This paper advocates implementing Systemic Functional Linguistics (henceforth SFL) which subscribes to a view of language as a "meaning-potential". In fact, Halliday and Matthiessen (2004) place a high premium on the notion of function (meaning) as the fundamental building block of language and state in no uncertain terms that texts and the individual clauses comprising texts are carriers of multidimensional meanings, namely Ideational, Interpersonal, and Textual and representations of three strands of meaning rather than vessels of propositional content. However, as Halliday (2001) puts it, equivalence in translation has largely been characterized ideationally to the exclusion of interpersonal and textual meanings. This research was an endeavor to examine how effectively the latter two are handled. In order to test this, 15 M.A. translation students were selected randomly and were given the text State-Sponsored Horror in Oklahoma to translate. In the data analysis, each clause of the English text and its translation were analyzed to both identify the ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings and classify the errors in accordance with their nature. To achieve this, recourse was made to Halliday's SFL which offers a rich repertoire of metalinguistic tools for text analysis from an analytical angle. The results of the study were congruous with Halliday’s statement.