A Study On C-E Prose Translation From Cohesive Perspective

The ultimate aim of a translator is to achieve a measure of equivalence at text level, rather than at word or sentence level. To achieve this, first, the translator needs to know the properties of being a text. According to Halliday and Hasan, what distinguishes text from non-text is texture, which consists of thematic structure, information structure and internal cohesion. Thematic and information structure mainly concern with the organization of clauses; while cohesion links different parts of the text together.As one of the most important text-forming components, cohesion occupies an important position in translation studies. However, present translation studies from cohesive perspective lays too much emphasis on English-Chinese translation. As for Chinese-English translation, the focus of their attention is novel translation. Few scholars have explored cohesion in Chinese-English prose translation. Mona Baker mentions cohesion varies both across languages and across text types. With the purpose of finding out how different parts of the translated prose text are related as a unified whole, therefore, this thesis attempts to explore cohesion in Chinese-English prose translation.This thesis selects Zhang Peiji's prose translation as research object. As distinguished contemporary translator, Zhang Peiji has been dedicated to translation study, especially prose translation. He has published books and articles on prose translation, among which the three volumes of Selected Modern Chinese Prose Writings have received countless favorable comments from readers. He gives priority to the reproduction of the textual spirit, and strives to express the information and function of the source text, as well as the style and flavor of the source text. This thesis, therefore, selects Zhang Peiji's prose translation for analysis. First, based on Halliday and Hasan's cohesion theory, a comparative analysis of Chinese prose text and Zhang Peiji's translation is conducted, aiming at demonstrating the differences of cohesive devices in Chinese prose text and its translation. Next, based on the analysis of Zhang Peiji's prose translation, translation principles adopted by him to deal with these differences are put forward, in the hope of offering reference for future Chinese-English prose translation.