Cohesion In Translation

Based on Halliday's Cohesion theory, the thesis attempts to make a comparative study of the two Chinese versions of the Cop And the Anthem and probe into the application of Cohesion theory in translation practices.With the text as its basic unit, the essential function of language is to communicate.When analyzing the problems of translation, traditional linguistics tends to put emphasis on the level of words and sentences. However, if we study translation from the perspective of text linguistics, we can handle the problems of information transfer at a higher level of linguistic structure.As the linguistic feature of the text, cohesion is the visible network of the text, and it is displayed on the level of surface structure. On the other hand, coherence is the essence of cohesion and an invisible network of the text. Coherence can be only displayed in the deep structure of the text and can only be achieved through the way of logic induction. Cohesion is a necessary factor to create a text and it is the basic ingredient for the text comprehension.As one of the prerequisites to the formation of a text, cohesion is the basis for a text to be understood. Cohesion is an important way to make a text concise, informative and coherent. Readers have to interpret a word by referring to what has been mentioned and what comes after in the text. Meanwhile, different languages have different preferences for cohesive devices. As a result, the studies about translation should be expanded to text other than merely bounded by words and sentences. Only after the respective cohesive devices in source language and target language and their differences are studied, could the adequate ways of adaptation be found out.Based on Halliday and Hasan's description of cohesion, this thesis refers to the grammatical cohesive devices and lexical cohesive devices, with the former covering reference, ellipsis, substitution and conjunction, and the latter being made up of reiteration and collocation.This thesis aims to enrich translation theories and practices from different angles by analyzing the relevant examples and thereby exploring the differences of Chinese and English cohesive devices and some laws in translation. The sample consists of three parts: the source text and the two target texts. The source text is taken from the Cop And the Anthem, a short story by O.Henry. The two target texts are taken respectively from the translation by Zhang Jinghao and the translation by Li Wenjun . The study is carried out in five aspects: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion.The thesis is divided into five parts.Chapter One is a brief introduction, including the definition of key terms, aims, setting, scope and sample size of the study.Chapter Two is literature review, concerning the development of cohesion theory in the field of linguistics and surveys the components of the theory. It covers the relevant studies in the field. It describes how the scholars of linguistics at home and abroad apply cohesion theory to translation and the development of this study in these years.Chapter Three is a comparative study of the two versions in the five aspects of cohesion as mentioned above. The data analysis shows that the handling of cohesive devices in translating can result in quite different translations. Due to the differences between English and Chinese, translating the cohesive devices word for word is not only impossible but also unnecessary. Therefore, the cohesive devices in the source text can be treated flexibly.However, flexibility does not mean neglecting all the rules. What's more, the basic message of the source text should not be changed. Retention, amplification or even omission of cohesive devices can be employed, conveying the information of the source text to the largest extent as naturally as possible. The excellence of translation has no bound, so there is always room for improvement.Chapter Four will be the application of cohesion in translation practices. Based on the contrastive studies between the English texts and their Chinese renditions, two general tendencies are found with regard to the translation of cohesive devices: equivalent or near-equivalent translation; non-equivalent translation with necessary changes to achieve both faithfulness and expressiveness. At the same time, some techniques in translation will be found.The conclusion is a final summary of this thesis. It discusses the value of study of applying cohesion theory into translation, points out the restrictions in this thesis and probes into the future of this study.