English-Chinese Translation Of EST From The Perspective Of Discourse

The traditional EST translation was based on register theory, which just focused on the technical words and the grammar according to different specific registers. Correspondingly, register-based EST translation was static and rigid. Then discourse theory brings new light to the modern EST translation. Traditional register theory placed emphasis on the technical words and general English grammar, whereas discourse theory focuses on the connectivity and the rhetorical structure beyond the sentences. Discourse theory mainly studies how the sentences are combined together so as to achieve communicative function in a certain discourse. In the previous researches, the discourse theory has been frequently applied to the study of English literature. However, there are few works of the EST translation from the perspective of discourse. Thus the aim of this thesis is to study the English-Chinese translation of EST from the perspective of discourse.To be specific, the paper discusses the cohesion, the coherence and the rhetorical structure of EST from the perspective of discourse and their application analysis of E-C EST discourse translation. Cohesion, like a visible net, refers to the apparent surface connection in EST discourse; while coherence, like an invisible net, refers to the inner semantic relation in EST discourse. Cohesion in EST discourse consists of reference cohesion, substitution&ellipsis cohesion, other grammatical cohesion, lexical cohesion and logical connector. Coherence in EST discourse includes overt and covert coherence. And the rhetorical structure is also an important feature of EST discourse. The rhetorical structure of EST discourse is composed of three levels:the top is the topic, the second is the rhetorical function, and the third is the rhetorical technique. And corresponding EST discourse cases and their comparative English-Chinese translations of EST are presented so as to analyze English-Chinese EST translation from the view of cohesion, coherence and the rhetorical structure respectively.