Thematic Progression Pattern As A Means To Achieve Discourse Coherence

The translation of academic work is of great significance to the development of academics.As one of the masterpieces of Liang Shuming,a master of Chinese culture,Fundamentals of Chinese Culture is a classic work of Chinese culture.In Chapter Eight Class Opposition and Occupational Division that the author of the present paper translates,Liang Shuming discusses three issues—the definition of class,no class in China and occupational division.His analysis is very thorough,theoretical,systematic and logical.However,showing this kind of logic of ST in TT is not an easy task.In C-E translation,some cohesive devices need to be adopted to show the logic,among which the thematic progression serves as a good one.In theme-rheme theory,the thematic progression refers to the relation between themes and rhemes of adjacent sentences in a discourse consisting of two or more sentences.Academic work is a formal and logical text,with a close connection between adjacent sentences or even in a discourse.Thematic progression pattern,which acts as an implicit cohesive tie connecting themes and rhemes of adjacent sentences,plays an important role in achieving cohesion and coherence.Therefore,it also provides some reference for the C-E translation of academic works.It is conducive to forming a coherent text and reproducing the logic in the source text.This report concerns the application of theme-rheme theory to the translation of Chapter Eight of Liang Shuming's Fundamentals of Chinese Culture.It is divided into four chapters.In the first chapter,the author of the present paper describes the task.In the second chapter,the author of the present paper introduces preparations for the translation.The third chapter is the main part of the report.Through analyzing how thematic progression forms a coherent text and reproduces the logic in source text,the author of the present paper finds that acting as an implicit cohesive tie,it plays an important role in C-E translation of academic works.Through analysis of and reflection on the translation,the author proposes some translation strategies in C-E translation of academic works proceeding from this translation,including maintaining the thematic progression of ST,adjusting the themes of ST and changing the thematic progression of ST.The fourth part is the conclusion part,in which the author of the present paper introduces the findings,implications and limitations of the report.The author of the present paper hopes that this translation report will provide reference value for future translation of academic works.