On Discourse Coherence In EST Translation

Coherence is a main feature of discourse. The research on discourse coherence has been always an important aspect of discourse analysis. And it has great theoretical and applicable significance in applied linguistics. The research on discourse coherence is useful to us to realize the structure of a discourse better and it also can guide the translation. The thesis uses the texts of English for Science and Technology (EST) to study the discourse coherence. Through making a comparison on discourse coherence in EST translation, the thesis will present the appropriate translating strategies to reconstruct coherence in the target text. The research on discourse coherence in the thesis is expected to guide the discourse translation in other styles of English.There are many researches on discourse coherence at home and abroad. However, the relationship of cohesion and coherence as well as the concept of coherence are still vague. Therefore, the thesis studies the relationship of cohesion and coherence, and takes cohesion as a necessary but not a sufficient condition to form a discourse. About the concept of coherence, the thesis holds the same view as Zhu Yongsheng, and regards it as a semantic notion. The thesis studies the discourse coherence with Zhang Delu’s classification of the conditions of discourse coherence, and divides the conditions of discourse coherence into external conditions and internal conditions. The external conditions include situation context, cultural context, cognitive model and mental process, while the internal conditions also called cohesive devices include lexico-grammar, sound and intonation. Among of the internal conditions, lexico-grammar includes transitivity, mood, information, thematic and non-structural cohesion. Through analyzing the features of EST, the thesis suggests the thematic structure and the non-structural cohesion are the two main factors which affect the discourse coherence in target text during EST translation. Therefore, the thesis mainly studies the discourse coherence in EST translation from the two aspects of thematic progression patterns and non-structural cohesion. It emphasizes the important role of the discourse coherence in EST translation again. However, it also points out that more work must be done in discourse analysis so as to make it better to guide the translation practice.