THE SYSTEMIC FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR THEORY AND THE APPRAISAL OF TRANSLATION QUALITY (AN ANALYSIS OF VIETNAMESE TOURISM TEXTS AND THEIR ENGLISH TRANSLATION)

Abstract

Systemic Functional Grammar studies and unifies meanings and functions of language. Accordingly, texts have three principal meanings, namely ideational, interpersonal, and textual meanings. This paper attempts to look into a tourism text from Vietnamese into English from the Systemic Functional Grammar perspective as a multidimensional assessment of translations. The research findings suggest employing the Systemic Functional Grammar into text analysis sheds light on meaning differences of the target text compared with the source text, particularly on whether the writer’s attitude, manifested in interpersonal meaning, is conveyed effectively or not. Then, the paper provides some implications for use of the Systemic Functional Grammar in Vietnam’s tertiary translation education, especially translation assessment.