Hypotaxis, Parataxis & Translation Between English And Chinese

Hypotaxis and parataxis are one of the most important research subjects in contrastive linguistics and textual linguistics. It is generally agreed that English is a hypotaxis-prominent language while Chinese is a parataxis-prominent language. The former lays emphasis on formal cohesion while the latter on semantic coherence. This paper makes a comparative study of hypotaxis and parataxis in English and Chinese in terms of culture, language and translation.This paper consists of five chapters. The introduction deals with the purpose and significance of the study. The definitions of hypotaxis and parataxis and some basic concepts in contrastive linguistics are also touched upon.Chapter 1 is a review of previous study made by some scholars in this field. A deep-rooted cultural explanation is made to prove that the hypotaxis-prominence of English and the parataxis-prominence of Chinese are the natural outcome of the disparities in philosophy and in modes of thinking. Western analytic philosophy and formal logic require explicit markers to show grammatical relationships, while Chinese synthetic philosophy and fuzzy logic draw on the meanings of words and context to denote logical relations.Chapter 2 analyzes the hypotaxis-prominence of English at three hierarchical linguistic levels. Hypotaxis at the intra-sentential level lies in the S-P mechanism and the use of prepositions and the expletive words. The indispensable subject, together with the predicate verb forms the kernel of a sentence, which controls all other linguistic elements in a sentence. Prepositions, which function as modifiers, adverbials and predicates in English, can normally be omitted or substituted with verbs in Chinese. The use of the expletive words, which do not exist in Chinese, enforces the completeness of sentence structure. Hypotaxis at the inter-sentential level mainly concerns the use of coordinators and subordinators. Coordinators and subordinators are indispensable in English sentence construction while they can often be omitted in Chinese. English has relative words, which are absent in Chinese. At the extra-sentential level, or the textual level, both hypotaxis and parataxis can be found in Chinese but English is more hypotaxical than Chinese, which is reflected in the use of textual connectives and ellipsis. In English cohesion is overt as more connectives are used while in Chinese it is relatively covert as fewer connectives are used. Ellipsis in English has formal or morphological markers, which in Chinese is guided by the expression of meaning.Chapter 3 elaborates on the parataxis-prominence of Chinese. Chinese sentences are typically of the Topic-Comment construction. Therefore they enjoy greater complexity, diversity and flexibility. Word order remains an important device forsentence organization. The natural order, which is usually a temporal sequence of events, embedded with inner logical relations, make parataxis possible in Chinese. Parataxis finds its best expression in the flowing-water construction and it is also reflected in constructions such as compressed sentences, four-character construction and antithesis. However, neither hypotaxis nor parataxis exists only in one language. Paratactic expressions are also found in English. Synchronical changes of language, text types and personal styles may affect the use of hypotaxis and parataxis.Chapter 4 deals with the implications of this study for the translation between English and Chinese. Some translation strategies are exemplified with a focus on that of Cutting and Integration.Chapter 5 is the conclusion. The above analysis finally supports the assertion that English lays emphasis on hypotaxis and Chinese puts stress on parataxis. This is a linguistic phenomenon that cannot be neglected in contrastive linguistics and translation studies. The contrast between hypotaxis and parataxis forms one of the most distinctive characteristics of English and Chinese. An appropriate understanding of this contrast is of great significance for translation between English and C...