The Textual Perspective In English-Chinese Translating Process

The traditional linguistics largely focuses on language itself at or below the sentential level and is far from enough to provide a satisfactory tool for translation study. The research of Textlinguistics scope extends beyond the linguistic units or syntactic rules and focuses on the properties of whole texts and their functions in communication. Guided by textlinguistic theories and translation theories, this thesis aims at approaching translation from the textual perspective.Textlinguistics-based translation study could be conducted on two levels, namely, text-centered or intratextual ( co-textual ) level and user-centered or extratextual (contextual) level. Text-centered translation study focuses on the internal factors of the text, such as cohesion, coherence and text structure, while user-centered translation study focuses on external factors of the text, such as the author's intention, text function, register, contextual and cultural norms. From the above-mentioned angles, this thesis attempts to provide translation studies with a text-oriented perspective.All in all, translation study from the textual perspective has undoubtedly opened a new window and helps translators avoid the limitation of "seeing the trees for the wood".