Translation studies

Abstract

This chapter provides an overview of (a) how translatology has harnessed SFL as a framework for theorising and modelling translation, and (b) the various ways in which SFL has engaged in translation research. In the next section, it provides a brief history of SFL’s involvement in translation studies, mainly discussing Catford’s seminal work and Halliday’s expositions on translation. It goes on to look at SFL’s notion of register as a suitable basis for theorising and modelling translation. The chapter then discusses recent research on translation applying SFL for different research objectives such as register variation and regarding grammatical metaphor, cohesion and appraisal. A brief overview of the methods employed in the analysis of translation(s) follows and then we briefly describe the current practices in SFL-based translation research, with a focus on corpus-based studies. Finally, we briefly sketch possible future directions in SFL-based translation research.