A Research On The C-E Translation Of Red Sorghum Based On Thematic Progression Theory

Originated from the Prague School, theme-rheme structure is a theory splitting sentences intodifferent elements in accordance with their functions; it becomes a theory which is influential inlinguistic field after Halliday identified the information structure of theme and rheme. Thematicprogression theory as proposed by Dennis is the development of theme-rheme theory and is widelyused for discourse analysis and text translation. Theme-rheme structure and thematic progressionwere introduced into China in around1980s for the study of Chinese texts and Chinese-Englishtranslation. It is accepted that theme-rheme structure and thematic progression are also applicableto Chinese texts, and that theme is convertible in Chinese-English translation. It is noticeable,however, that theme-rheme struture and thematic progression were largely used for the analysis onpolitical reports, speeches, news reports and other genres which have clear thematic progression;they were seldom used for the analysis on literary genre. Based on early researches, this thesisintends to make a research on the application of theme-rheme structure and thematic progresssionto Chinese-English translation of Red Sorghum. The thesis also examines the application ofhyper-theme and periodicity theory to Chinese-English translation.In the present thesis, the author first introduces key concept of Halliday’s theme-rheme theory,including simple theme, multiple theme and clause theme, and puts emphasis on marked theme andunmarked theme, their classification, as well as the techniques for their translation in differenttypes of sentences. Then the author makes a detailed analysis on the stageties for translatingdifferent types of texts in literary works based on Xu Shenghuan’s four thematic progressionpatterns, emplified with sentences or texts extracted from Moyan’s novel Red Sorghum and itsEnglish version translated by Howard Goldblatt. According to the author, thematic progressionpattern of the original literary works, complex or not, should be retained during translation, so toreserve the information structure and rhetoric intentions of the original. Finally, the author makesan analysis on the translation and rewriting of some paragraphs of Red Sorghum based onhyper-theme theory and periodicity theory proposed by Halliday, Martin, Zhang Daqun, and etc.Periodicity can well accounts for the restructuring and rewriting during literary translation.