A Comparative Study On Thematic Structure And Thematic Progression Patterns In Chinese And English Political Texts

The theory of theme structure,an important theory Systematic Functional Linguistics developed by Halliday from the Prague School,is widely used in discourse analysis,applying the theory of theme structure to discourse analysis.Based on the study of subject predicate structure,Danes proposed the concept of the Thematic Progression.Since then,linguists at home and abroad have begun to conduct a large number of studies on Thematic Structure and its development pattern,covering advertising discourse,news reporting discourse,novel discourse,etc.However,in the aspect of political discourse,few people have studied the theme-rheme theory.However,as a means for states to express their attitudes and positions,political discourse has distinctive characteristics.Therefore,this thesis takes the bilingual versions of the 2019 Report on the Work of the Government(RWG)as the research object,mainly using quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the bilingual version of the 2019 Report on the Work of the Government from two aspects:Thematic Structure(TS)and Theme Progression(TP)pattern.The research questions are as follows:1 what are the characteristics of Thematic Structure and the Thematic Progression patterns in the original and target texts of 2019 Report on Government Work?2 Is there any difference and similarity in the distribution of Thematic Structure and the Thematic Progression between original text and target text?If so,why do they exist?3 How do dominant type of Thematic Structure and the Thematic Progression pattern help to organize discourse and help foreign readers understand it?Through analysis,the following features are found:(1)In the aspect of Thematic Structure,the similarities include:in the Chinese and English texts of the government work report,the frequency of Simple Theme is the highest,while in the Multiple Theme,the textual theme is higher,and the interpersonal component is the lowest,which reflects that the RWG text prefers to be objective and accurate,and the tone should be neutral,and the content should only be stated unilaterally instead of being subjective or speculative.Both English and Chinese strive for conciseness and accuracy.The differences are as follows:in Chinese texts,the Simple Theme dominates the distribution among all types of Thematic Structure,while others have lower frequency;in contrast,the theme structure of English texts is slightly diversified.(2)In the aspect of the Thematic Progression patterns,the same points are as follows:both texts contain four types of progression patterns(Constant Theme pattern,Constant Rheme pattern,Linear Theme pattern and Cross Theme pattern),of which Constant Theme pattern takes a large proportion.The differences are as follows:although in the E-RWG text,Constant Theme pattern accounts for a large proportion,compared with the C-RWG text,there are still many types of the Thematic Progression patterns,and the patterns of the Thematic Progression in Chinese constitutional texts are relatively concentrated,and the patterns of the Thematic Progression change less.From the similarities and differences between the TP patterns in both texts,it can be seen that the RWG text is rigorous and objective,strives to accurately explain the report content and does not pursue the diversity of discourse structure,but the overall structure is relatively single and rigid.In view of the above differences,the translator must take into account the linguistic features of political texts.In translation,specific issues should be analyzed in order to make the translation more in line with the linguistic features of the target language on the basis of conveying the original meaning,in particular,it should conform to the characteristics of political texts such as the RWG text,which is rigorous in language,clear in position and accurate in giving the information the government wants to convey.For example,in the aspect of Thematic Structure,the most common Simple Theme and non-topic Simple Theme are used in the C-RWG text,therefore,when translating,it is necessary to conform to the style of the original text,and combine the characteristics of English itself to supplement the topic theme of sentences,so as to make the sentence structure complete.In the aspect of TP patterns,the Constant Theme pattern accounts for the largest proportion,which also reflects the main body of government work reports,therefore,in translation,we should also follow this feature to ensure the unity and continuity of theme.