On Discourse As A Translation Unit

This article analyses the examples of the English?Chinese translation done by the students to prove that discourse should be the unit of translation in the translating process ,and only by doing so can we realize the criteria of translation faithfulness and expressiveness on the basis of discourse theory and translation theory.Discourse is an integration of structure and meaning . It is cohesive in grannnar and integrated in meaning . It natually becomes the communicative unit of a language .As a form of language communication , it is in fact a process of using discourse of one language to take the place of that of another one . It must be meaningful equivalent . Taking discourse as the unit of translation means understanding the contei~1t of the source language as a whole and forming a whole concept according to the linguistic context, situational context , cultural context and styles of the source language , then expressing it in the target language . The real translating operation process should be a cognitive process of topown The overal translation of taking discourse as the unit of translation follows this kind of cognitive process , so that the translator naturally can express the real meaning of the original text and realize the criteria of translation aithfulness andexpress1veness.0n1y by taking discourse as the unit of trans1ationand anaIysing the cohesive devices, contexts and stylesof the origina1 texts can you faithfu11y trans1ate it.And on1y by taking discourse as the unit of translationand making an overa11 ana1ysis of the 1ogica1 re1ationshipand discourse structure can you expressive1y ref1ect theorigina1 text. We cannot do this by taking word, phraseor sentence as the unit of translation.This artic1e has three parts: the first partintroduces the purpose of doing this study and researchon this study. The second part is the sain body of thethesis. 1t has three chapters: the first chapter is thesurvey of translation, the second chapter dea1s with the1imitations of the translation units be1ow discourse; Thethird chapter and the most substantial part is ontaking disourse as the unit of trans1ation can we realizethe criteria of translation. The third part sims up andconc1udes the study.Great progress has been achieved in studiesof discourse, and discourse theories have begun to beused in trans1ation. This article uses discoursetheories in trans1ation. By analysing the exmples of thetranslation done by students, the article putsforward its view on taking discourse as the unit oftrans1ation can faithful1y and expressivelly ref1ectthe origina1 text - It is hoped that it wi11 bringen1ightment and benefit to the Eng1ish--Chinesetrans1ation teaching.