Systemic functional translation studies (sfts): the theory travelling in brazilian environments

Estudos sistêmico funcionais em tradução (TSFs): a teoria viajando no contexto brasileiro

PLENARIES PLENÁRIAS

Systemic functional translation studies (sfts): the theory travelling in brazilian environments

Estudos sistêmico funcionais em tradução (TSFs): a teoria viajando no contexto brasileiro

Maria Lúcia Vasconcellos

(Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina - UFSC)

Abstract

This paper presents a mapping of the Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS) tradition in the Brazilian environment, from its genesis up to developments in the 2000's. While studies during the earlier period are informed by the concept of "translation as (re)textualization", more recent SFTS research can be charted along the 'cline of instantiation', translations being investigated as "instantiations-in-contexts", cross-lingual functional varieties of language, or still as sources of SFL-based language description of Brazilian Portuguese. From late 90's on, computerized corpora and corpus-based methodologies have been integrated into Brazilian SFTS, for which annotation methods for the tagging of SFL categories have been developed. The paper ends with a consideration of Brazilian SFTS against the background of international SFTS as disseminated in the 2nd HCLS.

Key-words: Systemic Functional Linguistics; Translation Studies; SFTS; Brazilian context.

Resumo

Este trabalho apresenta um mapeamento dos Estudos da Tradução Sistêmico-Funcionais no Brasil, desde sua origem até a década de 2000. No período inicial, os estudos são informados pelo conceito de "tradução como (re)textualização"; mais recentemente, a pesquisa pode ser mapeada ao longo do 'contínuo da instanciação', em que traduções podem ser investigadas como "instanciações-em-contexto", variedades funcionais entre línguas diferentes, ou fontes de descrições de base sistêmico-funcional do Português Brasileiro (PB). A partir de 90, corpora computadorizados e metodologias de corpus foram integrados à pesquisa brasileira, para o que códigos de anotação de base sistêmico-funcional foram especificamente produzidos. O trabalho termina com uma comparação da pesquisa no Brasil à pesquisa no contexto internacional, divulgada no congresso 2nd HCLS, 2008.

Palavras-chave: Linguística sistêmico-Funcional; Estudos da Tradução; SFTS; contexto brasileiro

Resumen

Este trabajo presenta un mapeo de los Estudios de Traducción Sistémico-Funcionales en Brasil, desde su origen hasta la década de 2000. En el período inicial, los estudios se basan en el concepto de "traducción como (re)textualización"; más recientemente, la investigación puede ubicarse a lo largo del "continuo de la instanciación" y las traducciones, estudiadas como "instanciaciones en contexto", variedades funcionales entre lenguas diferentes, o como fuentes de descripciones de base sistémico-funcional del portugués brasileño (PB). A partir de los ´90, se integraron a la investigación brasileña los corpora computarizados y las metodologías de corpus, para los que se desarrollaron específicamente códigos de anotación de base sistémico-funcional. El trabajo finaliza con una comparación de la investigación en Brasil y la del contexto internacional, divulgada en el Segundo Congreso HCLS, en 2008.

Palabras-clave: Lingüística Sistémico Funcional, Estudios de la Traducción, SFTS, contexto brasileño.

1. Initial remarks: Locating the present work

The theme of the 4^thALSFAL as embodied in the congress title 'language and education in latin america: integration and articulation via SFL' aims at stimulating the integration and articulation of different projects and approaches to language and education via SFL in Latin America, exploring inter-relationships between two or more of the domains of language studies in SFL, described by Halliday (1978:11): (a) language as system,which involves any aspect of semantics, lexicogrammar and/or graphology/phonology or any aspect of the interaction between these strata, including language variation or historical perspectives; (b) language as art, which relates to the study of literary texts and/or other types of aesthetic-oriented discourses or media of artistic expression; (c) language as knowledge, which has to do withthe cognitive or psycholinguistic side of language use, including language development, text production, reading comprehension, information processing, and roles of memory; and (d) language as behavior, which seeks to investigate texts as a semiotic activity and relates to language as a form of social action, including the study of different genres and the analysis of the interaction between discourse and social practices.

Figure 1 below shows the domains of language study in SFL and their relation to other fields representing the different branches of linguistic studies within the broken line in the diagram. Outside the broken line, are the different perspectives on language that, says Halliday (1978: 24), "take us beyond a consideration solely of language as a system, and, in so doing, impinge on other disciplines." Halliday (1978: 24) goes on to say that "(...) once one goes outside the central area, one is inquiring not only into language but into language in relation to something else." The diagram shows outside the broken line - the possible relationships of language to other types of activities regarded as pertaining to the 'something-else' as envisaged at the time of publication of Language as Social Semiotic (1978). It is worth noting that Translation Studies (TS) as an independent field of investigation is not included in the array of disciplines interacting with language studies; in fact, it was not until the 80s, with the publication of the foundational statement of the discipline by Holmes (1972, 1988, 2000), and with the work of scholars such as Susan Bassnett (Translation Studies, 1980) that TS established itself as an independent area, qualifying then to interface with other fields.

By looking at this diagram from the standpoint of 2008 and responding to the congress title, I would like to explore the articulation of SFL with TS somewhere outside the broken line between language as system and language as behavior: Theorizing the relationship of translation with SFL from a linguistic perspective entails not only reference to language as system in that the TS researcher looks at translations against the background of the meaning making potential of the languages in contact, but also reference to language as behavior in that the TS researcher engages with language as text instantiated in particular contextual conditions both in the source and in the target scenarios. Behaving linguistically as a special type of text, translated texts can be interpreted as cross-lingual functional varieties of language, a special register whose properties are amenable to description in systemic functional terms (Steiner 2004).

From the locus enuntiationis of a translation scholar with an SFL background, I share Matthiessen's (2007) view stated in the context of a concern with multilinguality that Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS) are now "entering a more 'feverish' phase" involving both translator training and research into translation in a number of centres and research groups around the world, (http://www.humaniora.sdu.dk/isfc2007/matthiessen.htm). This 'feverish phase' is in its own way - also productive in the Brazilian context, where research encompassing source text analysis, comparison of translations and source texts, comparison of translated and non-translated texts and annotated translation is informed by some kind of contrastive text analysis and contrastive stylistics, via SFL.

Within the context of Translation Studies interfacing with Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFTS) and from the understanding of translation both as a semiotic process and as a special kind of guided text production, I want to propose a mapping of research carried out in a historically embedded scenario, namely, the Brazilian academic environment from the nineties into the 2000's.

To this end, this paper is organized as follows: After these initial remarks in which I establish both the connections of my paper with the theme of the congress and my locus enuntiationis Section 2 presents the history of the SFL-TS connection in the Brazilian context, from the genesis of the systemic functional engagement with studies in translation up to developments in the 2000's in Brazil, documented in Pagano & Vasconcellos (2005) and Fernandes (2009). After that, Section 3 looks at the current situation of research carried out at this interface by drawing on two sources: (i) theses and dissertations openly affiliated with SFTS in the context of Graduate Programs in Brazil, as documented in the official site of the "Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES" [www.capes.gov.br]; (ii) SFTS research as represented in the papers delivered at the 4^thALSFAL itself. In Section 4, the paper ends with a consideration of Brazilian SFTS against the background of research carried out along similar lines in the international context, as represented by the 2nd HCLS Conference [Halliday Center for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies], held at the University City of Hong Kong, 13-15 August 2008: "Translation, Language Contact, and Multilingual Communication" [http://www.hallidaycentre.cityu.edu.hk/hcls-c2-2008/html/pconf.asp].

2. The history of the engagement of SFL with TS in the Brazilian Context

The present mapping of SFTS in the Brazilian academic context is intended to provide a picture of the application of the Hallidayan framework to TS with regard to the language pair English and Brazilian Portuguese. The significance of this review can be claimed in terms of the absence, both in the literature on the applications of SFL, and in the literature on TS, of a critical assembly of information in a similar fashion.

2.1. Genesis: The metafunctional dimension and the concept of retextualization

In his article, 'On analyzing and evaluating written text', Coulthard (1994:2) puts forward the concept of textualization, drawing on Halliday's textual function of the language: 'I prefer to see any given text as just one of an indefinite number of possible texts, or rather possible textualizations of the writer's message' (emphasis his). The key issue in Coulthard's words is the notion that ideational and interpersonal material come into existence - are realized - through the enabling function of the textual component of the semantic stratum of the linguistic system. And in this process of realization different meanings are produced, or textualized. Coulthard's comments are placed in the context of the re-introduction of evaluation in the analysis of written text as he proposes to look at 'why one textualization might mean more or better than another' (1). As he reminds his readers in the opening of his article, quoting Halliday (1985: xv), 'the higher level of achievement is a contribution to the evaluation of the text'.

The notion of textualization, central to the process of analyzing and evaluating texts, when transposed to the realm of Translation Studies, becomes a fruitful concept in describing translated texts. Elaborating on the idea of 'how textualization works in a given language when an original writer sets out to produce a piece of text' (5), Costa (1992) draws on Coulthard's (1978) expansion of Halliday's ideational content of the clause so as to include the ideational content of the whole text. Exploring the possibilities of going from the (macro) ideational to the (macro) textual component, Costa (1992:7) develops the argument that 'through translation a given text acquires its maximum expansion since it transcends the narrow linguistic limits in which it was conceived'. In this transcendence, it becomes the starting point from which the translator sets out to make a new text from an ideational content already textualized in another language. In this context, Coulthard (1992:11) defines the translator as 'anyone who takes an existing text which is inaccessible to a given group of potentially interested readers and attempts to produce a new text which will be accessible for them'. The translator plays both the role of a reader and of a re-writer: s/he reconstructs the printed marks constructed by the original writer, transforms them into his own lexicogrammar, and re-writes in a different linguistic code. This overall process is called retextualisation (RT).

Costa (1992: 3) sees this concept as 'the linguistic foundation of an insight I first met in Borges' 'Las traducciones homéricas', namely that all texts are 'provisional' or mere realizations out of an indefinite number of possibilities'. If texts are 'provisional', translations are 'doubly provisional' in the sense that they constitute one among varied possibilities of retextualization of ideational material already textualized in the source language. In this sense, translation is seen as retextualization. Costa looks at a collection of works by Borges translated into English, Portuguese, French, Italian, German and Dutch come from Halliday's An Introduction to Functional Grammar (1985, 1994), which he (1992:3) sees as 'an invaluable reservoir of handy concepts, rich in detailed grammatical analysis and full of examples taken from an immensely varied corpus of spoken and written English texts'.

Inspired by Costa's work, Vasconcellos's (1997) doctoral dissertation, entitled "Retextualizing Dubliners: A systemic functional approach to translation quality assessment", explored the SFL/TS connection by looking at two translations of Joyce's Dubliners into Brazilian Portuguese.¹ The work aims at demonstrating how a particular kind of linguistic analysis drawing on a semantically-oriented theory of language (SFL) proves to be effective in the description and assessment of translated literary texts. Informed by the concept of translation as retextualization, the research compares two short stories by Joyce, 'Araby' and 'Eveline', with some translations published in Brazil. The source text (Textualization T) and the translated texts (ReTextualizations RTs) are described in terms of systemic choices for the special foregrounded configurations emerging to encode ideational and interpersonal meanings. It is argued that translators' sensitivity to the meanings selected and realized in T and their response as manifested in the choices retextualized underlie the evaluation RT, offering solid grounds for literary translation quality assessment.

From this initial movement triggered by Costa's intervention in the field, research at the interface between SFL and TS in the early period of development was metafunctionally oriented and mainly carried out by researchers at Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina UFSC and at Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais UFMG, as reported below.

2.2. More recent developments: The 2000's in Brazil

In more recent developments (documented in Pagano & Vasconcellos, 2005 and Fernandes, 2009), SFTS research in Brazil by force of its configuration lends itself to interpretation in terms of two perspectives: (i) the dimension of 'instantiation' (cf.: Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004:26-28); and (ii) the dimension of 'text and the corpus' (cf.: Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004:33-35). As regards (i), translation studies can be interpreted in relation to its location along the 'cline of instantiation'; as regards (ii), translation studies can be described in an expanded fashion in terms of what becomes accessible to the researcher by means of corpus methodologies (cf.: Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004:33-36). Figure 2 below shows the 'cline of instantiation'. Text (or instance) and system define the two poles of the cline, along which intermediate zones can be explored in the description of texts.

Along the cline, translated texts can be studied as 'instantiations-in-contexts of language' (Steiner 2004:182) whose language can be 'attended to' (Malmkjaer, 2005; Munday, 2007), or can be interpreted as cross-lingual functional varieties of language, special registers whose properties can be investigated (cf.: Steiner 2004), or can be studied with a view to doing some SFL-based comparative description of the language pair involved. In the last scenario, some recent studies reveal a focus on translations as sources of SFL-based partial descriptions of the system of the language Brazilian Portuguese (BP), a perspective brought to the fore by the appearance of computerized corpus (cf.: Araújo, 2007).

As regards (ii) above - studies informed by corpus methodologies - some aspects of computerized corpora, particularly of small-scale phenomenon (cf.: Sinclair, 1991) and the use of corpus-based methods of analysis have been integrated into Brazilian SFTS. This trend echoes international research interests. For example, Kenny (cf.: 2001:30,31), investigating lexis and creativity in translated texts, points out the importance of corpus-based work for small scale research in the neo-Firthian tradition (among which she includes work done by linguists like Halliday, Sinclair and Coulthard), by showing how computers have given linguists new vantage points from which to observe both system and instance. She mentions the ability of computer processing to reveal recurrent patterns in corpora, and the use of reference corpora to help identify what is systemic and what is instancial in the language pair in contact via translational relationship. What matters for Brazilian SFTS is the adoption of Sinclair's views (1991: xi) concerning the distinction between Large and Small Corpora: While the former is designed for delayed human intervention (DHI), the latter is designed for early human intervention (EHI). EHI is practiced in Brazilian SFTS, since the corpora are submitted to researchers' direct intervention, particularly regarding corpus annotation.

For the language pair English-Portuguese, annotation methods have been developed exclusively for the tagging of SFL categories in the description of translated texts: A numeric code is proposed for corpora annotation based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar Código de Rotulação Sistêmico-Funcional CROSF (Feitosa, 2006). As Feitosa explains (1130) 'the code was developed through testing several prototypes on a small parallel bilingual corpus' and allows searches for different combinations of choices selected from the repertoires of the three systems realizing the metafunctions, namely, the Transitivity system, the Mood system, and the Theme-Rheme System.² The code is compounded by a seven-digit number potentially representing all categories described by Halliday (1994), Thompson (1996), and Martin et al. (1997). The illustration below, from Fleuri (2006) shows CROSF at work: Labels are annotated between angled brackets positioned before the element analyzed:

<!—L1, S 1657—> <0010131> The TRANSLATORS <0010330> were often specialists in the area in which <0010111> they <0010310> translated, (...).

<!—L2, S 1657—>Muitas vezes, <0010131> os TRADUTORES <0010330> eram especialistas nos assuntos traduzidos, (...).

In the illustration, zero means that the classification of the item to which it refers is not under consideration. In this specific description (not concerned with Thematic organization, but with the Ideational Metafunction), the first four digits (<0010...>) do not change, as they refer to 'Theme/Rheme', 'Position', 'Metafunction' and 'Markedness', respectively. The last three digits vary in accordance with the structural components of the Transitivity system and its typology, the focus of the research reported. In the example, the nominalization of processes becomes evident, easily seen and amenable to automatic search by means of three tools available in WordSmith Tools: Wordlist, Concord, and Viewer & Aligner.

CROSF has been successfully used by researchers at UFMG and UFSC for the annotation of corpora in studies informed by Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar.³ At UFSC, the following theses, dissertations, and monographs were defended: Morinaka (2005) looks at Gabriela Cravo e Canela and its retextualization into English, by looking at representation through lexical relations; Paquilin (2005) examines thematic structure in Bridget Jones's Diary; Fleuri (2006) is concerned with the ideational profile of the textual entity "translator/tradutor" in Translators through History and in Os Tradutores na História: in a similar line, Zuniga (2006) also investigates how the "translator/tradutor" is construed in Becoming a translator and Construindo o tradutor; Souza (2006) applies a model of evaluative language to the translation of a seminal text in free software philosophy; Filgueiras (2007) is interested in Capoeira em Tradução and its discursive representations in a bilingual parallel corpus; Pires (2006) looks at another ideational profile, that of Elizabeth Bishopin Flores Raras e Banalíssimas' and Rare and Commonplace Flowers.

At UFMG, Cruz (2003) looks at Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets and its translation into Brazilian Portuguese focusing on elocution verbs in the two texts; in a similar fashion, Mauri (2003) works with the language pair Italian-Brazilian Portuguese to explore the construction of introspection in female protagonists in Laços de Família also looking at elocution verbs; Assis (2004) is concerned with representation in terms of the ideational profile of the character Sethe in Beloved and its translation Amada; Jesus (2004) focuses on representation in terms of patterns of textualization in a parallel and comparable corpus; Cançado (2005), also interested in transitivity and representation, examines the discursive patterns in Interview with the Vampire and its translation Entrevista com o Vampiro; Rodrigues (2005) investigates thematic structure in A hora da estrela and the Hour of the Star; elocution verbs also merit Alves's attention (2006), concerned with aspects of discourse representation in translated texts; the semantic system of projection and its grammatical dispersion in BP is investigated via translation by Araújo (2007); and, finally, Jesus (2008) carries out a comparative study via translation of the projecting verb say/ dizerRelações de Tradução: say/ dizer in fictional texts.

The concentration of the systemic functional engagement with studies in translation at these two Brazilian Universities can be accounted for by the development of a joint project sponsored by CAPES, which encouraged academic contacts among scholars of the two universities: 'Programa Nacional de Cooperação Acadêmica - PROCAD' [National Program of Academic Cooperation] (097/10-2), at work from July, 2001 through December, 2005, established between the Graduate Programs 'Programa de Pós-Graduação em Letras Estudos Lingüísticos PosLin' (UFMG) and 'Programa de Pós-Graduação em Inglês PPGI (UFSC). In this context, some interdisciplinary interfaces were proposed to shed light on translating and translation, SFL being one of the theoretical frameworks drawn upon. The translation scholars working in this project are, by force of this academic connection, the ones responsible for forwarding the engagement of SFL with TS, with the aid of corpus methodologies. PROCAD yielded fruitful results in that it consolidated research in the area, as becomes evident in the survey above.

Returning to the issue of the perspectives from which Brazilian SFTS are interpreted here (the metafunctional dimension, the instantiation dimension and the corpus methodologies dimension), a close look at the research just reported shows that there is a tendency for the studies to use corpus methodologies, which shows in the descriptions of procedures adopted (CROSF being used for annotation purposes, longer stretches of texts being examined) and in the results obtained (visualization of patterns of linguistic behavior being made possible). As for the metafunctional orientation, a tendency is maintained in the exploration of categories of the ideational metafunction (both in its experiential and its logical dimension), the textual metafunction (mainly in what concerns thematic structure and cohesive devices), and the interpersonal metafunction (with emphasis on evaluative language in translation). In relation to the 'cline of instantiation', most studies tend towards the 'instance pole' of the continuum, where research interest lies in the distinction between choices in translations which are 'systemic' (relative to the two linguistic systems in contact) and those which are 'instantial' (connected with situational factors); another research interest is connecting empirical data with the situational factors perceived as influential in the target pole of the translational relationship. However, a growing interest in the 'system (of language) pole' can be felt in studies which aim at doing some SFL-based comparative description of the language pair involved, with a focus on translations as sources of SFL-based partial descriptions of BP.

As it stands, the SFL/TS connection seems to support Matthiessen's (2007) statement about the 'feverish phase' of Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS) mentioned in the introduction; however, there remains to see whether this 'feverish phase' becomes visible only at UFMG and UFSC. To this end, another survey is carried out on the basis of two sources: (i) theses and dissertations openly affiliated with SFTS in the context of Graduate Programs in Brazil as documented in the official site of the 'Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior CAPES' [www.capes.gov.br]; (ii) SFTS research as represented in the papers delivered at the 4^thALSFAL itself. This search is reported next.

3. The current situation of Brazilian SFTS research

3.1. The CAPES portal as a source of information

With the advances in contemporary practices of documentation made possible by electronic technologies, the Capes portal [www.capes.gov.br] has become a reliable source of information for research carried out in any area of knowledge production and dissemination in the Brazilian academic scenario. In this specific search, the CAPES portal was accessed⁴ between September 3^rd and 9^th, 2008 for retrieval of information on theses and dissertations defended at the various Graduate Programs related to "Letras e Línguistica" in Brazil. The search locations were basically (i) titles; (ii) abstracts; and, (ii) key-words. The search words used, perceived by the researcher as representative of the SFL/TS, connection, are listed: 'SFL', 'lingüística sistêmico-funcional', 'estudos da tradução' 'tradução', 'lingüística sistêmico-funcional e tradução', 'lingüística sistêmico-funcional e estudos da tradução', 'translation studies', 'translation studies and SFL', 'translation and SFL'; 'translation as (re)textualization'; 'translation as retextualization'; 'tradução como (re)textualização'; 'tradução como retextualização'. The results obtained yielded the picture reported next.

Considering the years of defense of MA and PhD work, the CAPES coverage reaches back to 1997. The numbers do not tell a nice quantitative story, when considered against the background of the national scenario of research developed in Graduate Programs in 'Letras' in Brazil. Only 18 (eighteen) works providing explicit evidence of the SFL/TS connection are documented: 16 (sixteen) MA Thesis and 2 (two) PhD dissertations. To judge from these figures alone, the phase does not seem quite 'feverish'. However, the picture is qualitatively revealing of the robustness of SFTS research concentrated at UFMG and UFSC: A look at the institutional affiliation of both supervisors and supervisees of such work suffices to show the phase is not only 'feverish', but will certainly boom in the years to come. This positive projection is made evident, for example, in two pieces of research defended in 2009, a period not covered in the searches carried out for the purposes of the paper delivered at the 4^th ALSFAL here reported: Fernandes's (2009) MA thesis and Assis' (2009) PhD dissertation, at UFSC and UFMG, respectively.

Fernandes's (2009) work entitled Black into White and Preto no Branco: Can You Tell One's Colour by the Company One Keeps? - supervised by myself and co-supervised by Dr. Célia Magalhães - looks at how the Brazilian entity mestiço is construed in the textualisation (T) of Black into white,and how it is construed as re-textualisation (RT) in Preto no branco; to this end, the study explores the experiential component of the ideational metafunction of language, and the lexical cohesion dimension of the textual metafunction, bringing into translational relation instantiations of the system of North American English and the system of Brazilian Portuguese. The empirical data obtained is then explored in terms of a contextual discussion (by drawing on Munday, 2002), aiming at connecting textual findings with contextual motivations by referring to a critique written soon after Preto no Branco was published in Brazil: As it turns out, the textual data deriving from the analysis of ideational constructions show that predominant material and relational processes both in T and RT realise the mestiço in consonance with racist thought that oriented political posture from late nineteenth to late twentieth centuries.

Assis (2009) revisits the issue of representation in SFL terms, this time exploring the potentialities of the Transitivity System in the investigation of the linguistic construction of Europeans and Africans in Heart of Darkness (1899) and two of its translations into Brazilian Portuguese (1984 and 2002), connecting the empirical data obtained with contextual factors by drawing on van Leeuwen's (1993, 1996) model of Social Actors Representation. Again, the work is jointly supervised this time having Dr. Magalhães as the supervisor and myself as co-supervisor. The investigation makes a move forward in the sense that it proposes to describe the sociosemantic aspects of the texts and to establish a new interface, that between Translation Studies and Socio Semiotics. Social actor representation is analyzed against the background of Achebe's ([1977] [1988] 2006) strong criticism of Conrad's standpoint, which he views as racist. By looking at the way Africans and Europeans are represented in the texts examined, Assis comes up with an ideational profile which allows him to say that both Europeans and Africans are represented unfavorably in the source text and in the target text, Africans taking the lead as they are represented as 'impersonalized', 'classified', 'primitivized' and 'somatized', using van Leeuwen's terms. In the description of the translations, an interesting fact emerges as regards racism issues: the offensive nature of the terms used to refer to Africans in the source text is veiled and mitigated in the translations by means of a diversity of socially accepted terms.

Both Fernandes (2009) and Assis (2009) take a step forward in the SFL/TS connection in that they relate the empirical data of their studies to socio-cultural aspects - a strong trend in research in the area - by drawing on Munday (2002) and van Leeuwun (1993, 1995) respectively.⁵

3.2. The 4th ALSFAL as another source of information

In quantitative terms, 4th ALSFAL consisted of 5 (five) plenary sessions, 4 (four) round tables, 12 (twelve) workshops, 203 (two hundred and three) abstracts including individual papers / thematic sessions / posters, which can be easily retrieved in the Conference's booklet of abstracts.⁶Figure 3 below shows the presence of SFTS at this event against the background of the total numbers, just for the sake of visual impact:

It goes without saying that this graphic display can hardly be said to describe a 'feverish phase' in the SFL/TS engagement. But, once a qualitative analysis is carried out of the two workshops, one plenary session, and thirteen papers presented at the conference, some interesting facts emerge.

An apparent absence of research interest in and commitment with the SFL/TS connection in Latin America countries other than Brazil at least as manifested in the papers delivered at the 4^th ALSFAL becomes evident. In fact, the only talk affiliated with a non-Brazilian university - the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong is Matthiessen's paper on language and education in Latin America, regarding the SFL empowerment of translator training and advanced language studies. All the other papers, including the workshop, the one plenary session and the 14 (fourteen) papers, are affiliated with UFMG and UFSC, which also provides evidence of absence of research interest in and commitment with SFTS in other Brazilian Universities.

In terms of the perspectives from which the Brazilian SFTS is charted the metafunctional dimension, the instantiation dimension and the corpus dimension corpus methodologies inform the majority of the studies. As regards the metafunctional dimension, the metafunctions are explored by means of: (i) the transitivity system (both in what concerns its experiential component and its logical component, with a great deal of research focusing on how a retextualization represents its source textualization in the new environment interacting with new textual and contextual factors); (ii) the Theme-Rheme system (mainly regarding comparisons between thematic structures and collocational patterns in the texts in translational relation); and, finally, (iii) the Mood system, with emphasis on the treatment given to evaluative and argumentative language in translation. Regarding the instantiation dimension, most studies tend towards the 'instance' pole, though some attention is given to description of elements in the system of the language BP (the description of 'but' and its prototypical PB counterpart 'mas').

As Appendix A shows, in terms of focus of interest, titles can be clustered around the following topics: (i) SFL and translator training; (ii) lexicogrammar and ideology; (iii) SFL/TS as a research area; (iv) multilingual translation; (v) representation and ideational profiles in translated texts; (vi) thematic structure in texts in translational relation; (vii) interpersonal bearings on the evaluative language of texts in translation; and (viii) SFL annotation code for the language pair English/BP .

UFMG and UFSC stand out as the Brazilian research centers where SFTS is and now I draw on Matthiessen's (2007) full expression "entering a more 'feverish phase'" (italics added). My use of the term is certainly optimistic and advances future unfoldings in this connection, as researchers are consolidating the area in the context of the academic community of Translation Studies in Brazil. This is made evident in the configuration of the X Brazilian Translation Forum / IV International Translation Forum to be held in September, 2009. The theme of the congress expresses the concerns of Brazilian researchers as embodied in its title ('Along the Paths of Translation: Where are we Heading?') and as manifested in the 15 (fifteen) subareas of the forum, which represent some avenues of thought to be discussed in relation to the diversity arising out of the theme of the X ENTRAD as regards research in translation in Brazil. Among them, subarea 11 Textual Approaches to Translation Studies is particularly interested in textual models of language in their approach to translation and in the investigation of meaning as manifested in the language of translation; this particular subarea which focus mainly on the SFL/TS connection - is coordinated by translation scholars from UFMG and UFSC, where this type of research is well established.

4. Final Remarks

In this final section, Brazilian SFTS is considered against the background of research carried out along similar lines in the international context, as represented by the 2nd HCLS Conference [Halliday Center for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies], held at the University City of Hong Kong, 13-15 August 2008: "Translation, Language contact, and Multilingual Communication" [http://www.hallidaycentre.cityu.edu.hk/hcls-c2-2008/html/pconf.asp]. As its title indicates, the whole conference is dedicated to SFTS - the comparison is made in terms of the qualitative aspects informing research as carried out in Brazil and at a center standing for benchmark research at international level in this connection.

A brief visit to the conference site suffices to show that in this specific context SFTS is really going through a 'feverish phase'. As announced on the conference site:

The objective of the conference is to explore (the modelling of) translation, relate it to other forms of communications in contexts of multilinguality, and suggest ways in which translation as process and as product may contribute to language contact. Among relevant questions arising out of this theme are: What are the specific characteristics of translation, as opposed to other forms of text production? And hence, what are possible specific properties of translations as texts? Furthermore, what is the relationship of translation to other multilingual situations of communication? Also, and importantly, are there interesting senses in which we would want to speak of inter-semiotic translations, involving different modalities (music, visual, etc.?). And in what senses, and on which levels, is translation a context and a vehicle of language contact and language change? These questions are meant to illustrate some avenues of thought to be explored in the conference, but many others will no doubt be raised by contributors and participants. (italics added)

The italicized segments in the quote above highlight the aspects under which translation is investigated, from an SFL perspective. The most relevant aspect to my view is the fact that translation is looked at from contexts of multilinguality and multimodality, which equates the translated text with any other form of mutilingual text production and relates it to other multilingual situations of communication. This is not the case in the Brazilian scenario, where translation is not investigated (at least in the SFL connection) against the background of multilinguality and multimodality, as special kind of text in its own and as a special kind of text production per se. But given this distinction, the other aspects meriting research attention match Brazilian research concerns: the modeling of translation; translation as process and as product;issues of languages in contact via translation; properties of translated texts; and also text analysis and translation. The last two aspects, which merit a special space at the 2^nd HCLS as topics of two courses taught in the Pre-Conference Institute, are establishing themselves as topics of research interest in Brazil.

After all this reflection, a question remains though: To what extent and in what terms can we say that SFTS is a growing area in the academic community in Brazil? In quantitative terms, the answer is obviously 'no': The simple fact that SFL research is still in its consolidation phase in Brazil might account for the infancy stage of Brazilian SFTS, in which numbers do not tell the whole story. However, the point this paper tries to make is that when a theory travels abroad it finds different environment configurations, different stages of development and different academic contexts. The title I chose for this paper "Systemic Functional Translation Studies (SFTS): The theory traveling in Brazilian environments" reflects this point: I borrow Said's (1983) use of the term environment in the discussion of the concept of 'intellectual interchange' as what he terms 'travelling theory' to suggest, with him, that the movement of a theory into a new environment "is never unimpeded" and that the local impediments are a positive response to the theoretical frameworks imported. In this sense, I would venture to say that SFTS in Brazil an environment different from that in which the SFL theory was first produced is consolidating itself in qualitative terms, which will eventually unfold into quantitative repercussions.

It is in this vein that this paper proposed to offer a tentative mapping of what is here intentionally called the SFTS tradition, with its own genesis and later developments: In addition to tracing the research trajectory, charting the territory may also help in the construction of a research identity which, by force of its visibility, will allow Brazilian SFTS into the international theoretical conversation in the area.

Appendix

List of the papers and authors, together with their institutional affiliation.

E-mail: [e-mail]

1. Two chapters of this dissertation were published separately in Tradução e Comunicação (2004) and Cadernos de Tradução (1998). Another chapter focusing explicitly on the SFL/TS connection - "The Fuzzy Place of Linguistics in Translation Studies" (forthcoming in the volume in honour of Solange Ribeiro de Oliveira, UFMG) spells out the contribution of SFL to TS in terms of the distinction put forward by Halliday (1978) between language as an "intra-organism" phenomenon (what happens in the individual or in the linguistic system) and language as an "inter-organism" phenomenon (what happens between individuals).

2. For a detailed account of CROSF, please see article at www.pucsp.br/isfc/proceedings/Artigospdf/57cda-feitosa-1130a1150.pdf 3. Please see Fernandes (2009: 7-9) for the detailed information on the survey of graduate work carried out at the SFL/TC/corpus-based methodologies. Unpublished MA Thesis, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Inglês PPGI, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, UFSC, Florianópolis, Brazil.

4. Data collected by Caroline Reis MA student/PGET Pós-Graduação em Estudos da Tradução/ UFSC.

5. It is worth mentioning that, by the time of submission of this paper (July, 2009), Assis obtained a faculty position as assistant professor at the 'Universidade Federal de Pernambuco' (UFPE) [Federal University of Pernambuco], in northeastern Brazil. Assis stands for the second SFTS research generation being employed at Federal Universities, which will change the Brazilian research scenario, both in quantitative and in qualitative terms.

6. Data collected by Elaine Espíndola.

• Alves, D. 2006. Aspectos da Representação do Discurso em Textos Traduzidos: Os Verbos de Elocução Neutros. M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Alves, F.; Magalhães, C., Pagano, A.; Vasconcellos, M. L. (Orgs.) 2001. Estudos da Tradução no Brasil: Resumos de teses e dissertações / Translations Studies in Brazil: Thesis and Dissertation abstracts. CD-ROM.
• Araújo, C.G. 2008. O sistema semântico de PROJEÇÃO e sua dispersão gramatical em português brasileiro: uma descrição sistêmico-funcional orientada para os estudos linguísticos da tradução M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Assis, R. 2004 A Transitividade na Representação de Sethe no Corpus Paralelo Beloved-Amada M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• ______. 2009. A representação de europeus e africanos em "Heart of Darkness" e em suas traduções, "O coração das trevas" Ph.D. Dissertation. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Bassnett-McGuire, S. 1980. Translation Studies London: Methuen.
• Cançado, T. 2005. Transitividade e Representação do Discurso no Corpus Paralelo "Interview with the Vampire"/ "Entrevista com o Vampiro". M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Coulthard, M.; Caldas-Coulthard, C. R.  (orgs.). 1991. Tradução: teoria e prática Florianópolis: Editora da UFSC.
• Costa, W. 1992. A Linguistic Approach to the Analysis and Evaluation of Translated Texts with Special Reference to Selected Texts by J.L.Borges' Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Birmimgham, England.
• Cruz, O. 2003.  Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets e sua Tradução para o Português do Brasil: Uma Análise dos Verbos de Elocução, com base na Lingüística Sistêmica e nos Estudos de Corpora. M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Feitosa, M. 2005. Desenvolvimento e aplicação do Código de Rotulação Sistêmico-Funcional (CROSF) M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Feitosa, M. 2006. Developing and Applying CROSF: A Numeric Code Proposed for Corpora Annotation Based on Halliday's Systemic Functional Grammar. Proceedings of the 33^rd International systemic Functional Congress, 1130-1150. [www.pucsp.br/isfc/proceedings/Artigospdf/57cda-feitosa-1130a1150.pdf]
• Fernandes, A. 2009. Black into white and Preto no Branco: Can YouTell One's Colour by the Company One Keeps? M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis, Brazil: UFSC.
• Filgueiras, J. 2007. Capoeira em Tradução: Representações Discursivas em um Corpus Paralelo Bilíngüe. M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis: UFMG.
• Fleuri, L. 2006. O perfil ideacional dos itens lexicais translator/tradutor em "Translators through history" e em "Os Tradutores na História.M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis: UFSC.
• Halliday, M.A.K. 1978. Language as Social Semiotic The social interpretation of language and meaning. London: Edward Arnold.
• Halliday, M.A.K. 1985/1994. An Introduction to Functional Grammar. London: Arnold.
• Halliday, M.A.K. and Matthiessen, C. M. I. M. 2004. An Introduction to Functional GrammarLondon: Edward Arnold.
• Holmes, J. 1988/2000. 'The Name and Nature of Translation Studies'. In Lawrence Venuti (Ed.) TheTranslation Studies Reader London/New. York: Routledge.
• Jesus, S. 2008. Relações de Tradução: say/dizer em Corpora de Textos Ficcionais. Ph.D. Dissertation.Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Jesus, S. 2004. Representação do Discurso e Tradução: Padrões de Textualização em  Corpora Paralelo e Comparável M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Kenny, D. 2001. Lexis and Creativity in Translation. A corpus-based study. Manchester, UK: St. Jerome.
• Malmkjaer, K. 2005. Linguistics and the Language of Translation Edinburgh:  Edinburgh University Press.
• Mauri, C. 2003. Um Estudo da Tradução Italiana de "Laços de Família", de Clarice Lispector, a Partir da Abordagem em "Corpora": A Construção da Introspecção Feminina Através dos Verbos de Elocução. M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Morinaka, E. 2005. Gabriela Cravo e Canela and its Retextualization into English: Representation through Lexical Relations M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis: UFSC.
• Munday, J. 2007. Encounters and clashes. Introduction to Translation and Ideology. The Translator, 13, n. 2, 141-149
• Pagano, A.; Vasconcellos, M. L. 2005. Explorando interfaces: estudos da tradução, lingüística sistêmico-funcional e lingüística de corpus. In: Alves, F.; Magalhães, C., Pagano,  A. Orgs. Competência em tradução: cognição e discursoBelo Horizonte, MG: Editora da UFMG.
• Paquilin, V. 2005. The various facets of a message: an analysis of the thematic structure in Bridget Jones's diary in the light of the Systemic Functional Grammar, Corpus Linguistics and Translation Studies interface. M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis: UFSC.
• Pires, T. 2006. The ideational profile of Bishop in 'Flores Raras e Banalíssimas' and  'Rare and Commonplace Flowers': a corpus-based translation study Monograph. Florianópolis: UFSC.
• Rodrigues, R.R. 2005. A organização temática em A hora da estrela e The Hour of the Star.M.A. Thesis. Belo Horizonte: UFMG.
• Said, E. W. 1983. The World, the Text and the Critic London: Vintage.
• Sinclair, J. 1991. Corpus, Concordance, Collocation: Describing English language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Souza, L. 2006. Aplicação do modelo de linguagem avaliativa à tradução: análise de um texto seminal da filosofia do software livre. Master's Thesis available from: http://www.pget.ufsc.br/curso/dissertacoes_ defendidas.php Retrieved on 9 November, 2007.
• Steiner, E. 2004. Translated texts: properties, variants, evaluations Frankfurt. Main: Peter Lang.
• Steiner, E. 2005. Hallidayan thinking and translation theory enhancing the options, broadening the range, and keeping the ground. In Ruqaiya Hasan, Christian M.I.M. Matthiessen & Jonathan Webster. Eds. 2005. Continuing Discourse on Language: A Functional Perspective. Volume 1. London: Equinox.
• Steiner, E. & Colin Yallop. Eds. 2001. Exploring Translation and Multilingual Text Production: Beyond Content. Berlin & New York: de Gruyter.
• Thompson, G. and Hunston, S. Eds. 2006. System and Corpus. Exploring Connections. London: Equinox.
• The 2nd HCLS Conference - "Translation, Language Contact, and Multilingual Communication". The Halliday Centre for Intelligent Applications of Language Studies (HCLS). City University of Hong Kong (CityU) - 13-15 August, 2008. (http://www.hallidaycentre.cityu. edu.hk/hcls-c2-2008/html/pconf.asp).
• Van Leeuwun, T. 1993. Language and representation: the recontextualization of Participantes, Activities, and Reations Sydney: Univelrsity of Sydney.
• ______. 1996. Representing social action. In: Discouse & Society. 6(1): 81-106.
• Vasconcellos, M. L. 1997. Retextualizing Dubliners: A Systemic Functional Approach to Translation Quality Assessment. Ph.D. Dissertation. Florianópolis: UFSC.
• ______. 1997. Can   the translator play with the system, too?' In Cadernos de Tradução 2, 137-184.
• ______. 1997. An   examination of modality in Hemingway's 'A very short Story' and a translation into Portuguese. In Anais do XIII Encontro Nacional de Professores Universitários de Língua Inglesa, 213-226.
• ______. 1998. Araby and Meaning Production in the ST and TTs: a Systemic Functional View of Translation Quality Assessment. Cadernos de Tradução, v. III: 215-254.
• ______. 2004. Re-textualizing Joyce's Eveline: A systemic-functional approach to translation quality assessment. Tradução e Comunicação, v. 13: 83-118.
• Zuniga, G. 2006. Construeing the Translator in "Becoming a translator" and "Construindo o tradutor": a Case Study based on Corpus and Systemic Linguistics M.A. Thesis. Florianópolis: UFSC.

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  21 May 2010
• Date of issue
  2009