A Contrastive Study Of Cohesive Devices In English And Chinese Texts And Their Translation

Language use takes the form of texts rather than of words or sentences. Therefore, if translation is viewed from the perspective of text linguistics, the problems of information transfer can be dealt with at a higher level of linguistic structure so that our vision can be broadened and the techniques can be more comprehensive.Cohesion, as one of the ways a text is held together, plays a very important role in text understanding. The cohesive devices can make the language concise, information prominent and the logic clear. It is of great significance to understand the similarities and differences of the cohesive devices between English and Chinese in the translation practice and foreign language teaching. Halliday & Hasan (1976) divide cohesive relations into grammatical cohesion: reference, substitution, ellipsis and conjunction and lexical cohesion. The contrastive study between English and Chinese is the core of the theory of translation between the two languages. In the light of Nida's theory of functional equivalence and Halliday and Hasan's cohesion theory, this thesis makes a study, through a good number of examples, of the similarities and differences of the cohesive devices in English and Chinese texts and their translation rules with an attempt to enrich translation theory and practice from the perspective of contrastive text linguistics.The thesis consists of eight chapters.The thesis begins with an introduction which elaborates the significance of the study of cohesion in translation activities, the theoretical basis, approach and main aim of this study.Chapter One summarizes the efforts of linguists at home and abroad in the application of text linguistics, especially the theory of cohesion to the contrastive study between English and Chinese and to translation practice. Since 1960s, some translation researchers abroad have begun to introduce the findings in related disciplines into their study so that they can make a systematic exposition on translation practice from different points of view. A general survey of the research on translation since then shows that it has taken a course of interdisciplinary transplanting. Moreover, this chapter reviews the development of the study during the past decade by commenting on several works of linguists at home and abroad.Chapter Two introduces the concept of translation, arguing that translation is animportant social activity which contributes to the communication across different languages. Moreover, the definitions by different translation theorists are given. Then, this chapter stresses the important guiding role of translation theory in the translation practice. Based on the above, Nida's theory of functional equivalence is put forward as the theoretical basis of this thesis.Through an analysis of many examples, Chapter Three to Chapter Seven respectively make a description and contrast of the cohesive devices, that is, reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and reiteration, in English and Chinese texts, and attempt to find out the differences between the English and Chinese cohesive devices of text and some of the rules in the translation of cohesive devices. The major distinction of the English linguistic structure from the Chinese one is that English shows hypotaxis predominance and Chinese parataxis predominance, which is essential in the contrast between English and Chinese cohesion. Hypotaxis and parataxis are discussed in Chapter Three.In the translation practice, even in the published translated works, there still exist the quality problems, among which is the improper use of cohesive devices. The fact that translators fail to identify them and even misunderstand them in the source text will lead to the consequence that the translated version does not fit in with the way of expression in the target language and that the translated sentences are not smooth and coherent. Chapter Seven makes an analysis of some examples in some published translated works so as to find out the causes of neglect or mistranslation of cohesion.