Report On E-C Translation Of Parentheses From The Perspective Of Cohesion Theory

The translator chooses Anthony Pagden’s The Pursuit for Europe as the material for her translation practice.This book focuses on the history of Europe from the Napoleonic Wars to modern Europe,and digs out the complex roots of the idea of a large "European family".It also reveals the combined force of military,politics and religion behind Europe’s developing course of becoming a "united" family.The outstanding language features are complex sentences and frequently-used parentheses.English is a hypotaxis language,featuring the subordination of one clause to another.As a result,the use of parentheses is prevalent in English texts.No matter how long these parentheses are,they are put in a secondary position and do not affect the focus of the sentences.However,Chinese,as a parataxis language,features simple and short sentences.Long inserted parentheses may make Chinese sentences awkward and hard to read.Therefore,in the translation process,we must deal with parentheses carefully and always bear in mind the importance of text cohesion.Under the guidance of Halliday&Hasan’s cohesion theory,this report summarizes the parentheses into three categories,namely,"elaboration","extension"and "enhancement".Also,based on the translation methods put forward by domestic scholars such as Bao Yan,Ye Qiurong and Zheng Shengtao,the translator summarizes four translation methods of parentheses,namely,retaining word order,adjusting word order,adding words and using punctuation marks.The translator aims to secure the accuracy and readability of the translated text.A total of 24 representative cases were selected and the following findings were drawn:among the four strategies,adjusting word order is the most frequently-used one,which proves that reorganizing the sentences according to logical relationships can help improve the logical fluency of the translated text.Besides,the addition of conjunctions and referents,such as transitive conjunctions,personal reference and time indicators,can also effectively enhance the coherence of the translation.