| Translation Studies has seen the introduction of the corpus-based approach into its field of research for sixteen years. The growing application has been made of the approach for various translations studies together with the study on Translation Universals. The combination of Corpus Linguistics and Descriptive Translation Studies enables the hypothesis-testing methodology in which Translation Universal study gained large-scale empirical data support. This, thereby, aroused the research interests of many linguists. Blum-Kulka (1986) first proposed the explicitation hypothesis, which postulates an observed cohesive explicitness from SL to TL texts regardless of the differences between the two linguistic and textual systems. Afterwards, Chesterman (2004) classified the universal into S-universal and T-universal based on inter-language and intra-language comparison mode respectively. This paper examines, as a probe, the conjunction explicitation in translated English and Chinese by means of the corpus-based approach. The author launches a comprehensive research on the sentence level C-E and E-C conjunctions conversion, based on large scale bilingual parallel corpus and DIY comparable corpus, controlled by the translation direction and degree of language parataxis in the frame of inter-language contrast and intra-language comparison. The fundamental objective is to test the explicitation hypothesis, find the effective variables in the level of text explicitness and reach an explanation to the phenomenon of explicitation in the process of quantification. The corpora involved in this research are: Hong Lou Meng Chinese-English Parallel Corpus, Lady Chatterley's Lover English-Chinese DIY Parallel Corpus, Tess of the D'Urbervilles Comparable Corpus, The Call of the Wild Comparable Corpus, Lady Chatterley's Lover Comparable Corpus, Wei Cheng Comparable Corpus and Jin Fen Shi Jia Comparable Corpus. The present study attempts to put forward the investigation from the following aspects:1. With the research foundation of the predecessors, the author attempts to set three assumptions previously:first, in the process of C-E and E-C translation, the quantity of conjunctions in the translated texts demonstrates a tendency of explicitness; Second, in the translation process from Chinese to English, the translated text, in compared with the non-translated text, is implicit due to Chinese language parataxis, and in compared with source text, is explicitl; Third, in the translation process from English to Chinese, the translated text, in compared with the non-translated text, is explicit due to English language hypotaxis, and in compared with source text, is implicit. 2. Based on the above assumptions, an empirical examination will be implemented to investigate the translational conversion of the causal and adversative conjunctions with assistance of both Parallel Corpora and Comparable Corpora. In consequence, explicitation is detected in the research in different levels and is found affected by the degree of language formalization.According to the statistics, this paper finds: (1) the use of conjunctions in Chinese and English translated text tends to be more explicit. (2) the proportion of the explicit conjunctions, reports an obvious tendency of explicitation in C-E translation by the interference of English hypotaxical features and an increasing tendency of implicitation in E-C translations by the interference of Chinese Parataxical features besides still an obvious tendency of explicitation. (3) In the comparison between translated and non-translated text, English translated texts are more implicit by the influence of Chinese ST and Chinese translated texts are in an obvious tendency of explicitation. The above results basically support the 3 assumptions in which, through analyzing all the above statistical results, conclusions are drawn about features of explicitation in C-E and E-C translations is thereby hoped to be obtained.
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