A Study Of The Chinese Translation Of Cohesive Devices In English Information Texts

As English and Chinese belong to different language systems,there are differences at the levels of vocabulary,syntax and discourse.Since the appearance of cohesion theory,more and more scholars at home and aboard have taken interest in its application to translation,which helps to solve the problems like wrong diction and confusing structure.Fast development of technology and deepening international communication have increased demands for the translation of technical texts.This research report is targeted at the translation of Blockchain in Education,a report from the Joint Reacher Centre(2017).Halliday and Hasan's cohesion theory is applied to analyzing the ways of translating sentences containing cohesive devices in terms of reference,ellipsis and substitution and conjunction.Meanwhile,strategies for translation of such cohesive devices are summed up based on this translation project.Translation practice indicates that Chinese is a topic-prominent language,preferring parataxis,while English is a subject-prominent language,preferring hypotaxis.Meanwhile,Chinese language structures tend to be implicit while English ones explicit.Various cohesive devices used in technical texts require different and flexible ways of transfer in translation.In this translation project,four methods or techniques are adopted,i.e.,reservations,omission,repetition and word reordering.For reservation,it retains the original cohesive devices directly,and adjust word order to produce the same cohesive effect in Chinese.Omission is used in the translation of sentences using personal reference,demonstrative reference,nominal substitution and conjunction.Repetition is used in the translation of sentences using personal reference,nominal substitution,ellipsis and conjunction.Word reordering is applied to make the translation comply with the target language habits.