Pre-systemic Foundations for Translation Studies : Readings Informing Systemic Functional Linguistics

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 Bronisław Malinowski, J.R. Firth, M.A.K. Halliday, J.C. Catford, Jean Ure, and Jeffrey Ellis. Part I includes works by Bronisław 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.