The Comparison Of Semantic Cohesion In Certain Literary Works

With the development of translation theory, text has been regarded as the basic unit of translation. Thereupon, cohesion, one of the elementary components in text analysis, plays an important role in translation.A famous American linguist, Eugene A. Nida, advanced the theory of "equivalent effect" or "dynamic equivalence" which is intended that the receptors should respond to the target language (TL) message with substantially the same manner as the source language (SL) receptors do to the original. As one of the items used to connect the text, cohesion is indispensable in the equivalent effect translation. Nevertheless, this principle is impossible in practice because of the vast linguistic and cultural differences between the two languages. Thus, it is necessary to make a comparative analysis of cohesion between English and Chinese texts for the purpose of approaching the roughly equivalent effect. The classification and the analysis of cohesion made by Halliday and many Chinese linguists can help the translators to transmit the main idea of SL text to TL one accurately and to skillfully reconstruct the structure of the version with cohesive devices suitable to the characteristics of the target language. The present thesis attempts to discussthe distinctions of cohesive devices between English and Chinese texts and their application to literary translation with the adequate examples and the knowledge of text linguistics so as to compensate for the cultural and linguistic differentiations that cause the loss of meaning.This thesis is divided into five parts. Part one begins with a look at the definition of cohesion and its theoretical bases in China and in the West. Part two approaches the possibility of comparison of cohesive devices in different languages and its significance in translation. Part three focuses on making a comparison of cohesive devices in English and Chinese by providing many possible remedial measures to achieve the roughly equivalent translation. Part four draws the conclusion that properly utilizing cohesive devices in text translation can help to make the version more faithful, intelligible, natural and roughly equivalent to the original.