Coherence In Translation Studies-With Two Chinese Versions Of Pride And Prejudice As A Case Study

Language is the carrier of meaning as well as the object of translation. A traditional approach to translation stu(?)sis from the linguistic point of view. Especially with the boom of text linguistics, text analysis has been introduced into translation studies as an illuminating new perspective. Translation, with text as its operation unit, is manipulated through the analysis of text parameters and characteristics in contextual and communicative domains. Coherence, the key property of a text, undoubtedly provides an effective and significant base for translation studies. In the process of translation, in order to achieve the optimal effect, we have to reconstruct the manifold relations of the original text to the greatest extent. Here, the term "coherence", is borrowed from linguistics into translation theories to cover all the relations both intratextual and extratextual.Since the publication of Cohesion in English by Halliday and Hasan in 1976, coherence has been perceived from various perspectives at different linguistic levels and much acknowledged as a comprehensive semantic notion incorporating complicated influential factors. However, the significance of coherence in translation has yet to be further investigated and an applicable and effective analytical model of translation research on the basis of coherence is still to be established in the combination of text linguistics and translation. Through the analysis and comparison of English and Chinese cohesive devices, this research focuses on the realization of textual coherence in E-C translation. Cohesion is regarded as the internal semantic relations whereas coherencethe external linguistic devices. Coherence is fulfilled through grammar and structure and serves as the norm for the choice of translation strategies and the criterion to evaluate translated versions as well. Combining the relevant linguistic theories with translation theories in expanding textual coherence and by comparing samples from two different Chinese versions of Pride and Prejudice, the thesis tries to investigate the functions of coherence mechanism in different aspects, including the text structure, semantics and pragmatics, etc.Starting from a brief introduction to the origins and development of text linguistics, the thesis highlights the formation of the two important factors, cohesion and coherence, and then by introducing the concepts of coherence, the relationship between cohesion and coherence and the importance of coherence mechanism in literary translation are further explained. The author divided coherence into three levels, namely, grammatical coherence, semantic coherence and pragmatic coherence. The present thesis constructs of six chapters.Chapter One focuses on the literature review of text linguistics, elaborates the relationship between text linguistics and translation, and discusses the two important factors in textual coherence.Chapter Two discusses the concepts of coherence put forward by different scholars, and the relationship between cohesion and coherence.Chapter Three starts with Halliday's theories on cohesion, the focus of grammatical coherence., then describes two important parts of grammatical coherence, which are grammatical cohesion (a most important device of coherence construction) and tense chains, as well as their significance in grammatical coherence in literary translation. Adequate examples from Pride and Prejudice are supplied to illustrate the different manipulation by the two translators and how coherence can be reconstructed at this level through translation techniques.Chapter Four illustrates the semantic coherence. In the realm of semantics-three important types of cohesion-repetition, synonym and collocation are discussed in this chapter. According to my study and analysis, coherence mechanism performed by lexical cohesion indicates that semantic relations exist between and among lexical items in various ways and the result of the semantic reconstruction in the TT should be evaluated in terms of intratextual and intertextual coherence. Translators should not pay too much attention to the representation of the original informational function at the cost of the aesthetic function and the related stylistic, connotative, affective and collocational meaningsChapter Five delves to study how coherence can be achieved in the TT at pragmatic level by comparing English and Chinese in social deixis, cultural background and thought: patterns. By comparing the two Chinese versions of the novel, the conclusion is made that whether a translated text coheres or not depends ultimately on the ability of the targeted addressee to make sense of it by relating it to what they already know or to a familiar world, and only when all pragmatic factors are objectively taken into account of the TT in large can coherence be achieved.In brief, the author of the thesis draws the conclusion that each dimension of coherence serves to constitute one facet of the total network of relations in the course of literary translation. And once such relations are optimally reconstructed in literary translation, the meanings and values involved will present it coherently as intended in the original text.In a word, through the combination of theoretical elaboration and practical analysis of translated versions, this dissertation aims to analyze the constructive guidance and effective operability of coherence realization in translation studies as well as in practices. Since coherence is an inclusive semantic notion, it surely leaves vast space for further research in this field.