The theoretical framework of the present research is based on Halliday's FunctionalGrammar, taking English introductions to scenic spots written by English natives and Chinesetranslators as the samples. The present research makes an attempt to contrast Englishintroductions written by English speakers and that by Chinese, probing into the similaritiesand differences of these two types of texts in realizing text cohesion and coherence. Inmethodology, this research is mainly adopted qualitative method, and meantime quantitativemethod is employed to validate the results of the research.In English introductions to scenic spots written by English natives and Chinese, lexicalcohesion is the main cohesive ties. And ratio of lexical cohesion in introductions written byChinese is rather higher than that by native English. In these two kinds of texts, two types oflexical cohesion, reiteration and collocation, are both frequently used, and reiteration isdominant among them. In grammatical cohesion, they both depend on the means of reference,ellipsis and conjunction, rather than substitution to achieve coherence in traveling texts. Theresearch indicates that cohesive text does not necessarily make coherent text, nevertheless,cohesion is a very important means of coherence. In summary, there are more similarities thandifferences in cohesion between these two types of texts.From the perspective of ideational function, in English introductions to scenic spotswritten by native English and Chinese, material processes play a dominant role in transitivity.But there are some differences: in English introductions by Chinese the frequency of materialprocesses is higher than that of native English introductions, while the frequency of relationalprocesses in former texts is higher than the latter texts. As for voice, passive voice isfrequently used and mostly related to the material progress in English introductions to scenicspots by both native speakers and Chinese translators. But there also exists big differences in them that English introduction byChinese have a higher rate of presence than that of natives.From the angle of interpersonal function, in English introductions to scenic spots writtenby native English and Chinese, mood can be shown by the sequence of subject + finite.Declarative is the dominant mood. However, there are some differences. In Englishintroductions by Chinese, the subject is more complicated than that by English natives, whosetexts are always unfolded around the tourist attractions or reference"it".From the perspective of textual function, the research first focuses on the theme system.We find that English introductions to scenic spots written by native English and Chinesepresent similar thematic structure. Exactly speaking, simple themes have a dominant priorityover multiple themes; unmarked themes play a dominant role compared with marked themes.Additionally, four patterns of thematic progression are all used in these two types of texts, thetypical progression of which is Derived Theme Pattern. However, there are some differencesbetween them. In texts written by English natives, Linear Theme Pattern is less than that intexts written by Chinese translators. As for the information structure, in English introductionsto scenic spots of these two types of texts, given plus new is the dominant way, whichindicates new information will be generated on the basis of given information as fulcrum.It is hoped that the results can give some inspirations to translation. We should payattention to the similarities and differences of these two tourism texts when writing ortranslating the English introductions to scenic spots. |