Comparison Of Thematic Progression Patterns In English And Chinese Business Contracts And C/E Translation

This thesis was to make a contrastive study on the different thematic progression patterns employed in Chinese and English business contracts based on Holliday’s textual metafunction and Danes’ theory on thematic progression for the purpose of exploring the choice of TP patterns in CBCs and EBCs and their similarities and differences, the factors for the similarities and differences, and translation of business contracts according to the different choices of TP patterns.The author randomly selected ten Chinese and English business contracts from the Latest Copy for Business Contract, including657Chinese clauses and624English clauses. Based on Danes’ four types TP patterns and Huang Guowen’s six types TP patterns, the author found thirteen TP patterns in CBC while eleven in EBC and there are some similarities in CBC and EBC:(1) Thematic progression is one of the most important cohesive devices in both CBCs and EBCs.(2)The most frequently used TP patterns in CBCs and EBCs are the constant theme pattern, the simple linear pattern and the split rheme pattern, with simple linear pattern ranking the second; the rest TP patterns all appear with relatively lower frequency.The differences are:(1) Though TP patterns are employed in a large proportion as cohesive devices. English tends to have more such cohesive devices.(2) Though the zero theme pattern is used in both CBCs and EBCs. the number of its occurrences in CBCs and EBCs are of great difference.32times in CBCs but only twice in English.(3) There is no alternative pattern or merged theme and rheme pattern in EBCs.According to Fries, the main factor resulted in the similar choice of TP patterns in Chinese and English texts is the same genre. Business contract belongs to the genre of legal document, which aims to elucidate the standing point, perspective, policy or strategy, and its basic form is some outline, clause and detailed regulation. Therefore, constant theme pattern and simple linear pattern are widely adopted. Chinese is a paratactic language with an opening flexible structure and often omits subjects while English is a hypotactic language with a strict structure and emphasis on cohesion between clauses.Therefore, there are more varieties of TP patterns in CBCs and the similarities and differences can serve as guidance for the translation of business contracts in the choice of TP patterns. If the TP patterns adopted in the ST are of similar occurrence in CBCs and EBCs. the TP patterns in the TT should be preserved; if the TP patterns adopted in the ST are of different occurrence in CBCs and EBCs. the TP patterns in the TT should be adjusted or restructured.