A Study Of Ian Mason’s Discourse Analysis Theory In Translation

Dr. Ian Mason is a professor of Heriot Watt University in England. He is a world famous translator, interpreter and translation theorist. Ian Mason‘s profound acquirement, rigorous scholarship and great achievements attract a large number of young scholars to follow his steps. However, in China the study of Mason‘s translation achievements is rare and unsystematic,and most of the studies just focus on his early academic achievements. There is no one paper ever listing systematically of Ian Mason‘s translation studies from early times to recent years, let alone making any all-around summary or evaluation on Ian Mason.The purpose of this thesis is to make a rounded and systematic carding and description of Ian Mason‘s translation theory, exploring Mason‘s unique form of thinking, divergent study of translation theory and his luxuriant translation practice. From those the contemporary and following scholars at home and abroad can better understand and ponder translation theory.As a representative figure in text translation study, Ian Mason‘s early researches pay more attention on context. Based on Halliday‘s model of language analysis, Ian Mason adds the semiotic level and the analysis of context from register, pragmatic and semiotic dimension. The emergence of Discourse, ideology and translation marks the new development of Ian Mason‘s discourse analysis theory. He takes further study on the combination of ideology and discourse analysis in translation. His new analysis model embodies in the following three aspects: lexical cohesion, theme/rheme arrangement and text structure. Besides, in recent years Mason has paid more attention to the study of written and verbal translation practice, especially the practice of dialogue interpreting. He re-examines the function of interpreter in dialogue interpreting with the method of discourse analysis, and reveals the interpreter‘s real property and responsibility from the perspective of social group, identity and communicative authority. Compared with Mason‘s early translation theory, his later discourse analysis has more and more his own features for he has built a wider research field in language analysis.