Systemic Functional Linguistics in Translation

Abstract

This article is concerned with my personal account of the process of translating into Vietnamese a world famous grammar book: An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Second Edition, written by world renowned scholar M. A. K. Halliday. The account of the translation process is placed within the compass of systemic functional linguistics. It is clear from my account that in translating An Introduction to Functional Grammar, Second Edition, the translator may experience many daunting problems, among which the problems of translating technical terms and long and heavily loaded nominal groups seem to be the toughest. It is also clear from my account that systemic functional linguistics is highly relevant to translation theory and translation practice. It can stand to benefit the translator from analysis of the source text, to discussion of translation problems, to explanation for establishment of points of equivalence between the choices in the target text and those in the source text, and to synthesis of the target text.