definiteness and the meaning reconstruction in English-Chinese Translation
What is it about?
Discourse analysis has drawn people’s attention to micro levels in the discourse. This means that some subtle issues that were ignored in the past may carry with them some implicit meanings when looked at in the context. In this regard, topicality in Chinese usually indicates definiteness, whereas this definiteness is signaled by articles, pronouns in English texts. The difference between the two systems can result in problems in translation if not handled properly. Therefore it should be stressed that the management of theme-rheme structures should be dealt with much care from micro text levels, along with an interpretation of the macro intention of the text, so that the translation process should be highlighted. By incorporating the model of discourse analysis, the interaction between the original and translation can be realized.
Why is it important?
Chinese and English are different in terms of definiteness in their language systems. when a translator makes a choice in the target language systems according to what he interprets the source language, the coherence profile may turn out to be different in the respect of the relationship between the definiteness and the coherence in English - Chinese translation. This paper explores the subtle issues in the translation, which may offer some insights for the translators in the practical fields as well as those in translation studies....