Recreating the image of Chan master Huineng: the roles of MOOD and MODALITY

Functional Linguistics, Feb 2016

The article investigates the roles of MOOD and MODALITY in the recreation of the image of Chan master Huineng in four English translations of The Platform Sutra by Wong Mou-lam, (Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Wei Lang, on the High Seat of the Gem of Law (Message from the East), 1930), Heng Yin, (The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, 1977), Thomas Cleary, (The Sutra of Hui-neng, grand master of Zen: with Hui-neng's commentary on the Diamond Sutra, 1998) and Cheng Kuan (The Dharmic Treasure Altar-Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 2011). MOOD refers to the mood types of indicative and imperative, and MODALITY covers the semantic space between ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Adopting SysFan, a computational tool for doing systemic and functional analysis, the study investigates the choice of mood types and the values of modality (low, median and high) in each translation. Heng and Cleary favour high-valued modality more than Wong and Cheng though the mood type of declarative is adopted by all. They also use more imperative clauses and indicative clauses with high-valued modality than the latter. Consequently, two types of image are recreated of Huineng: an authoritative and forceful Huineng presented by the two American translators, and a prudent and polite Huineng presented by the two Chinese translators. The investigation shows that the phenomenon cannot be accounted for by the translators’ linguistic competence. Instead, the context of the translation, especially the tenor, should be taken into consideration to interpret these two types of image of Huineng.

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Recreating the image of Chan master Huineng: the roles of MOOD and MODALITY

Yu and Wu Functional Linguistics Recreating the image of Chan master Huineng: the roles of MOOD and MODALITY Hailing Yu Canzhong Wu The article investigates the roles of MOOD and MODALITY in the recreation of the image of Chan master Huineng in four English translations of The Platform Sutra by Wong Mou-lam, (Sutra Spoken by the Sixth Patriarch, Wei Lang, on the High Seat of the Gem of Law (Message from the East), 1930), Heng Yin, (The Sixth Patriarch's Dharma Jewel Platform Sutra, 1977), Thomas Cleary, (The Sutra of Hui-neng, grand master of Zen: with Hui-neng's commentary on the Diamond Sutra, 1998) and Cheng Kuan (The Dharmic Treasure Altar-Sutra of the Sixth Patriarch, 2011). MOOD refers to the mood types of indicative and imperative, and MODALITY covers the semantic space between 'yes' and 'no'. Adopting SysFan, a computational tool for doing systemic and functional analysis, the study investigates the choice of mood types and the values of modality (low, median and high) in each translation. Heng and Cleary favour high-valued modality more than Wong and Cheng though the mood type of declarative is adopted by all. They also use more imperative clauses and indicative clauses with high-valued modality than the latter. Consequently, two types of image are recreated of Huineng: an authoritative and forceful Huineng presented by the two American translators, and a prudent and polite Huineng presented by the two Chinese translators. The investigation shows that the phenomenon cannot be accounted for by the translators' linguistic competence. Instead, the context of the translation, especially the tenor, should be taken into consideration to interpret these two types of image of Huineng. MOOD; MODALITY; Huineng; Image; Systemic functional linguistics; Context; Tenor Introduction Huineng (638–713) is a great Chan master in the Tang Dynasty of China. He is venerated as the founder of Chinese Chan, Japanese Zen, Korean Sŏn and Vietnamese Thiên (Jorgensen 2005, 1) . The source text, The Platform Sutra (1291), is a collection of the public sermons and personal conversations of Huineng and ‘one of the best known, most beloved and most widely read of all Chan texts’ In systemic functional linguistics (SFL), MOOD refers to the mood types of indicative (declarative and interrogative) and imperative, and MODALITY covers the semantic space between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ and provides different ways ‘in which a language user can intrude on his/her message, expressing attitudes and judgements of various kinds’ (Eggins 1994, 179) . The role of MOOD and MODALITY in an exchange is closely related to the speech functions of the clause, that is, what the speaker is doing through language. As the basic question of religion is ‘how to be and what to do’ (Downes 2011, 42) , this study focuses on how Huineng provides information and gives commands to his audience and disciples in different translations, and the types of image recreated of him thereby. Direct speeches of Huineng in five chapters from four translations (Wong 1930a, Heng 1977, Cleary 1998, Cheng 2011) are extracted and then analysed in SysFan (Wu 2000), a computational analytical tool for systemic and functional analysis. It is shown that though statements are realized through declarative clauses in all the four translations, there is a significant difference in the certainty/uncertainty of Huineng in the information provided, as illustrated through different values of MODALITY. The realization of commands is more complicated, with a difference in the selection of major mood types (imperative vs. modulated indicative) and values of MODALITY in modulated indicative clauses. Consequently, two types of image recreated of Huineng can be recognized: the authoritative and forceful Huineng presented by the two American translators, Heng Yin and Thomas Cleary, and the prudent and polite Huineng presented by the two Chinese translators, Wong Mou-lam and Cheng Kuan. A possible cause for this is lack of competence in the source language (pre-modern Chinese) on the part of the two American translators. However, as will be explained in this study, linguistic competence cannot account for the phenomenon. The recreating of the two types of image is interpreted from the perspective of the context of translation, especially the tenor between the translator and target readers. Translating for an audience who are not part of their own culture, the two Chinese translators are confronted with greater social distance with the target readers than their American counterparts, who serve either as an information provider for Buddhist practitioners or a cultural mediator bringing in exotic Eastern ideas to ordinary English readers. The significance of the study lies in its pioneering attempt to apply SFL to the study of translations of The Platform Sutra, an influential text which still has not received enough attention from either SFL or translation studies. Moreover, the study provid (...truncated)


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Hailing Yu, Canzhong Wu. Recreating the image of Chan master Huineng: the roles of MOOD and MODALITY, Functional Linguistics, 2016, pp. 4, Volume 3, Issue 1, DOI: 10.1186/s40554-016-0027-z