Using systemic functional text analysis for translator education : an illustration with a focus on textual meaning

This paper presents text analysis based on systemic functional linguistic (SFL) theory as a pedagogical tool for the teaching of translation. It is part of a follow-up study of the author's initial attempt to use text analysis to explain translation errors and issues found in students' translations in relation to meanings and categorize them into different kinds of meaning, namely experiential, logical, interpersonal and textual (Kim 2003 & forthcoming). In this paper, particular attention is paid to textual meaning, which has not been rigorously researched in translation studies (Baker 1992, House 1977/1997), by analyzing Themes in a set of texts, these being an English source text, two Korean texts translated by students, and a comparable text. Following the analysis, pedagogical effects of SFL-based text analysis are discussed, referring to students' learning journals as well as the results of a survey on students' experiences of applying the tool in learning translation. The quantitative data demonstrates that in general the students' experiences were positive. The qualitative data reveals the specific benefits and difficulties that they experienced.24 page(s