E-C Translation Of Comparative Structures From The Figure-Ground Perspective

This translation project report mainly deals with the cognition and translation of English comparative structures, based on the translating of a significant academic text----The Darwinization of Linguistics written by William Croft, one of remarkable linguists.According to previous research by scholars from home and aboard, comparative structures can be categorized into overt comparative structures and covert comparative structures. The figure-ground theory and prominence view point out that the arrangement of sentence structures is based on the significance of information. Figure refers to the important message, while the ground is less important. English sentences give top priority for those speakers-emphasizing messages, which will be put at the end of sentences in Chinese. Thus, the basic cognitive structure of word order in Chinese is different from that in English:Chinese follows "ground-figure" model and English follows "figure-ground" order. Thus, starting from the figure-ground theory and prominence view, the thesis intends to make a preliminary analysis about the basic structures and translation of comparative structures, aiming to find out effective techniques in the area of academic texts.