A Comparative Study Of Cohesion And Coherence In Chinese And English Versions Of The Republic Of Wine And Its Translation Strategies

Cohesion and coherence are the core of text research, they are important elements for constructing the meaning of the text. This thesis analyzes Mo Yan’s novel The Republic of wine and its English version translated by the contemporary translator Howard Goldbatt. Based on the theory of functional linguistics and translation skills, this thesis contrasts the similarities and differences between Chinese and English cohesion and coherence. In accordance with cohesion and coherence differences between the two languages, this thesis also systematically discusses the translation strategies for them and provide some suggestions for further development of translation practice.The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one briefly introduces significance, aim and methodology of the thesis. Chapter two is literature review. It makes a review of text linguistics, and also includes the review of the text linguistics applied in translation home and abroad. Chapter three is theoretical framework. This chapter first makes a clear understanding of cohesion and coherence and also provides a theoretical framework of cohesion and coherence in English and Chinese text from Halliday’s systemic functional linguistics. Chapter four makes a detailed comparison of Chinese and English versions of The Republic of Wine in terms of cohesion and coherence. This chapter first makes an introduction to The Republic of Wine and its English version. For the novel The Republic of Wine, this chapter analyzes the explicit coherent factors (cohesion) in the texts and explores how the cohesion help to build coherent texts in both ST and TT. On the other side, it also analyzes the implicit coherent factors (coherence), especially situational and cultural context, and explores how coherence functions in constituting a coherent text. Chapter five is the translation strategies for cohesion and coherence. According to the results of comparison, this chapter discusses how to rebuild the coherent relationship in the translation practice and how to use effective translation strategies for cohesion and coherence. Chapter six makes a conclusion of the thesis. This chapter points out the limitations of the authors and puts forwards some suggestions for further studies in this field.