Translating Text and Context: Translation Studies and Systemic Functional Linguistics. Volume 2: From Theory to Practice

Following on the first volume (Manfredi 2008), which focuses on the theoretical issues that link Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) and Translation Studies (TS), this second volume of Translating Text and Context aims at demonstrating how they can be fruitfully exploited in the actual practice of translation. The book starts with the illustration of four models informed by SFL which have been offered by renowned TS scholars and linguists (House 1977/1981, 1997, 2014; Bell 1991; Baker 1992/2011; Steiner 1997, 1998, 2004) and which, to varying degrees, have been applied to the practice of translation. Then, partly drawing on such models, as well as on the SFL analysis outlined by Miller (2005), the book puts forth a Hallidayan approach to translation practice, integrated with further insights from TS. The goal is to offer a tool for translation teaching, to be employed for both the production and evaluation of target texts, working with the language pair English/Italian. It is argued that the proposed SFL approach could be exploited to translate a wide range of text-types, from (semi-)specialized to literary. The model is also seen in operation through the practical analysis and translation, from English into Italian, of a diverse range of sample texts, from a variety of text-types. The book’s ultimate aim is to offer a contribution to translation education, in the hope that an SFL integrated approach could provide a systematic method for coping with the intricacies that languages, texts and contexts inevitably pose in a complex and multifaceted process such as translation is.