ABSTRACT
This chapter applies Systemic Functional Linguistics to analyse the dramatic monologue in a Chinese drama entitled Teahouse and its two English translations. Based on the analysis of Theme, taxis and logico-semantic type, some quantitative differences are found, and reasons are explained in relation to three contextual parameters, i.e. field, tenor and mode. In addition, four different kinds of metafunctional translation shift related to the textual and logical metafunction are also discussed. It is found that the translators’ concern for the performability of dramatic monologue has played an important role in the choices they made.
