An Investigation of Explicit translation in the True Story of Ah Q Based on SFL Theory

More and more combined studies of translation and linguistics have been conducted. Many papers analyzed Chinese to English translation based on Systematic functional theory (SFL), targeting ancient poems and fiction and a few types of research aimed at poses. Inspired by Halliday’s SFL theory, Hu and Zhu in 2008 further developed the metafunctions in SFL into ideational metafunctional explication, interpersonal metafunctional explication, and textual metafunctional explication. To enrich research into the Chinese prose, this paper explores the explicit translation phenomena in the true story of Ah Q, written by the best-known writer Lu Xun, in English versions, translated by Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie (Yang and his wife) based on the explication concept proposed by Hu and Zhu. Through analysis, first, ideational metafunctional explication phenomena were reflected in cultural information explication, conceptual explication, and discourse explication; interpersonal metafunctional explication was reflected in character relationship and modal explication; textual metafunction explication was reflected in logical conjunction explication. Second, the manifestation process was attributed to translation purpose, linguistic differences, and translators. At last, this paper proposes suggestions for future translation strategies based on SFL theory.