Variation in Translating the Confucian Lun Yu into English

The research attempts to analyze four translated texts within the Systemic Functional Linguistics framework with the aim of studying variation. Some of the findings of the present study is that there do exist translational variation at the macro strategic level and that at the micro operational level;what's more,Systemic Functional Linguistics,especially the functional syntax analysis plays the role of showing how meanings are expressed and translation variation theory helps us to understand translational variation.