A Report On English-Chinese Translation Of Coherence Of Medical Papers From The Perspective Of Halliday’s Textual Function

The English-Chinese translation of m edical papers intro duces international cutting-edge research to China and facilitates the development of medicine and health care. The language of m edical papers is formal, accurate, concise and logical. Th e paper works as a whole to deliver information effectively and its intrinsic coherence is of great significance. In translation practice, a systematic analysis of textual coherence not only deepens the understa nding of the source text, bu t also helps reproduce an accurate and precise translati on text that has the sam e communicative effect as the source text. Halliday’s textual function fr om the three m eta-functions of language includes cohesion, Them e-Rheme structure an d information structure. This report, based on the English-Chinese translation of medical papers that the author undertook, adopts the concept of H alliday’s textual function as its theo retical basis, analyzes the language and textual features of medical papers in English, and aim s to address English-Chinese translation of coherence in medical papers. The coherence of medical papers in English is mainly realized through cohesion and Them e-Rheme structure. Information structure will not be discussed in this report for it deals with discourse in speech. Cohesion can be classified as reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and lexical cohesion. The author proposes to us e literal translation, addition, omission and shift to translate cohesive devices in the papers. The m ost common Them e-Rheme structure in medical papers in English is simple Theme with unmarked Theme. The author suggests preserving the o riginal Theme-Rheme structure or reconstructing a Theme-Rheme structure that complies with the norms of the target language.