Realization Of Coherence In Translating From The Perspective Of Text Linguistics

Text linguistics is a new science that originated in the 1960s, but it is not until the 1990s that translation researchers began to apply theories of text to their study. Furthermore, the development of text translation cannot keep pace with that of text linguistics and many translation researchers and translators are still focusing their attention on isolated words, sentences or paragraphs. In this dissertation, I would elaborate on realization of coherence, one feature of textuality, in the translating process from the perspective of text linguistics. In writing this thesis, my purpose is to generally describe the translating process from the perspective of text linguistics, coherence to be more specific, and further point out the importance of the translator's linguistic as well as cultural competence in translating.Textuality is one of the research methods of text linguistics and it has seven standards, namely cohesion, coherence, intentionality, acceptability, informativity, situationality and intertextuality, of which coherence is the kernel without which a text will not be able to meet all the other standards and thus cannot be counted as a text at all. Coherence refers to the unity created between ideas, sentences, paragraphs and sections of a piece of writing. It gives a piece of writing its flow and also gives the readers a sense of what to expect and therefore, making the reading easier to follow as the ideas appear to be presented in a natural and almost automatic way. Coherence is especially relevant to researches on text comprehension and text production. Authors design a text in such a way that the readers may detect the relationships linking individual text constituents and thus may build a coherent mental model of the content of the text.Text comprehension and text production are the two important steps in translation. The translator has a dual identity: reader and writer. As a reader, his/her main task is to comprehend the source language text (SLT) and make coherent the information or meaning it conveys. However, this task is not easy to fulfill because many factors will affect or even hinder the translator's comprehension such as the difference in cohesive devices of the two languages, context of the text and thetranslator's cognition. English and Chinese belong to quite different language systems and there exist many differences in not only language forms but also the culture conveyed by each language. In order to get a good and full understanding of the text being translated, the translator should have enough linguistic as well as cultural competence to ensure an accurate comprehension and recognize the coherence of the SLT successfully.After comprehending the SLT, the translator is concerned with the production of a new text in another language, that is, to reconstruct another coherent text for the readers in another culture. Only when the target language text (TLT) is understood by its readers, can the goal of translation be achieved. Therefore, the translator should adjust his/her language to the habits of expression of the target readers. Chinese is a language of "parataxis" while English of "hypotaxis" and this fundamental distinction causes great differences in language structures, patterns of expression, etc. The translator is supposed to have a good command of the two languages so that certain accommodations can be properly applied where necessary.However, translation is not merely a transformation of the language form but also a transference of culture. It is the translator's responsibility to make proper predictions about the target readers' ability to accept the foreign culture, because they may not build the coherence of the TLT due to cultural factors even if the text is coherent in the translator's eyes. This dissertation will then dwell on two most widely used methods of dealing with cultural factors, namely interpretation in the text and annotation. These ways can not only help the target readers comprehend the translated text, but also convey the cultural elements of a different country to them so that they can know about a foreign culture. This is an urgent demand of translation to promote cultural exchanges between different nations.