TWO MAJOR FACTORS OF TEXT COHERENCE AND ITS
APPLICATION IN TRANSLATION
by
Zhang Liangqing
A Thesis
Submitted to the Graduate School and College of English
in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for
the Degree of Master of Arts
Under the Supervision of Professor Li Mei
Shanghai International Studies University
December 2007
Acknowledgements
I thank all those who have helped me to make this a better thesis than it would
otherwise have been.
First and foremost, I am greatly indebted to Associate Professor Li Mei, my
supervisor, for her instructive suggestions and constant encouragement, as well as for her
generosity in spending her time reading and polishing the paper. Without her helpful advice,
the paper could not have owned its present form.
I am also grateful to all the teachers who have taught me during the past two years, for
their enlightening words and ideas which provided me with immense encourage and
inspiration.
Last but not least, I owe my special thanks to my fellow classmates, who have
encouraged me and helped me a lot during the whole process. Also my heartfelt gratitude
goes to my parents for their support, understanding and everlasting love that constitutes the
most important spiritual wealth of my life.
i
Contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................................. i
Abstract .............................................................................................. iii
摘要 ................................................................................................... iv
Introduction..........................................................................................
1
Chapter 1 Theoretical Basis ......................................................................
4
1.1 Text and Texture........................................................................................................ 4
1.2 Coherence as an Important Feature of Text .............................................................. 5
1.3 Two Major Factors Influencing the Achievement of Textual Coherence ................. 7
1.3.1 Cohesion ......................................................................................................... 7
1.3.1.1 The Definition of Cohesion .................................................................. 7
1.3.1.2 The Classification of Cohesion ............................................................. 7
1.3.1.3 The Relationship between Cohesion and Coherence ............................ 9
1.3.2 Context .......................................................................................................... 11
1.3.2.1 The Definition of Context ................................................................... 11
1.3.2.2 The Classification of Context ............................................................. 12
1.3.2.3 The Relationship between Context and Textual Coherence ............... 13
Chapter 2 Text Cohesion and Its Application in Translation Practice .................
15
2.1 Grammatical Cohesion ........................................................................................... 15
2.1.1 References ..................................................................................................... 15
2.1.2 Substitution ................................................................................................... 19
2.1.3 Ellipsis .......................................................................................................... 21
2.1.4 Conjunction ................................................................................................... 22
2.2 Lexical Cohesion .................................................................................................... 24
Chapter 3 Context of Situation and Culture and Its Application in Translation.....
29
3.1 Context of Situation and Its Application in Translation ......................................... 29
3.1.1 Field of Discourse ......................................................................................... 29
3.1.2 Tenor of Discourse ........................................................................................ 31
3.1.3 Mode of Discourse ........................................................................................ 33
3.2 Context of Culture and Its Application in Translation ............................................ 36
3.2.1 Cultural Specific Expressions ....................................................................... 40
3.2.2 Imagery Confrontation .................................................................................. 41
3.2.3 Different Discourse Patterns ......................................................................... 43
Conclusion
......................................................................................... 48
Bibliography .......................................................................................
ii
50
Abstract
Linguistic communication always appears in textual form. Translation, as an
inter-lingual and cross-cultural communicative activity, should therefore take text as its
object. Since the rise of text linguistics or discourse analysis, the focus of translation study
and practice has shifted from the level of words or sentences to the level of text. And
textual awareness is a must in translation.
With the development of text linguistics, more and more scholars have applied its
achievements to the research of translation theory and translation practice. The scope of
text linguistics involves various aspects of research, in which text coherence is an
important one with wide concern. In recent twenty years, scholars of linguistic field at
home and abroad have attached more and more importance to text coherence and carried
out valuable research on the factors influencing the coherence of text, which is a decisive
factor in distinguishing a text from a non-text.
The author of the paper agrees with Professor Zhu Yongsheng (1996) in dividing the
conditions of text coherence into “internal conditions” and “external conditions”. Professor
Zhang Delu agrees with Professor Zhu Yongsheng in considering coherence as a semantic
concept in a broad sense and made a detailed explanation of these conditions. The “internal
conditions” consist of cohesive devices, while the “external conditions” involve “context
of situation” and “context of culture”. The author believes that both inner factors and outer
factors of a text play crucial rules in organizing a coherent text. The paper analyzes in a
detailed manner the factors of text coherence and their applications in translation practice
with abundant examples.
The paper concludes that in the entire process of translation, correct comprehension of
the source text and appropriate adjustment of coherence in the target text depend on the
understanding and analysis of the factors of cohesion. Negligence of these factors of
coherence may lead to misunderstanding and mistranslation.
Key words: text coherence; two major factors of text coherence; translation practice
iii
摘要
语篇交际总是以语篇的形式出现，而翻译作为一种跨语言、跨文化的交际活动，
其对象自是语篇。随着语篇语言学研究的兴起，翻译研究与实践的对象不再停留在单
纯的词语和句子层面上，而是转向了语篇层面。在翻译研究中必须建立明确的语篇意
识。
随着语篇语言学的发展，越来越多的人开始把它运用到翻译理论与实践的研究中
来。语篇语言学研究包括很多方面，其中语篇连贯是一个比较重要、涵盖面较广的话
题。近二十年来，国内外语言学领域的学者对语篇成篇因素之一的连贯的研究也日趋
重视，并就影响语篇连贯的因素展开了广泛的讨论。
朱永生教授将影响语篇连贯的因素划分为“内部因素”和“外部因素”。张德禄教授
也认为连贯在广义上是个语义概念，并将影响语篇连贯的内部因素和外部因素作了进
一步解释。其中“内部因素”包括衔接手段，而“外部因素”包括“情境语境”和“文
化语境”。本文作者认为无论是语篇的内部因素还是外部因素都在语篇的连贯方面起
着重要作用，并借用大量的例子集中讨论了它们在翻译实践中的运用。
文章最后得出结论，在翻译实践过程中，对连贯因素的分析和理解有助于对原文
的正确理解和在译文中的准确表达。反之，对连贯因素的忽视则会导致误解和误译
关键词：语篇连贯；影响语篇连贯的两大因素；翻译实践
iv
Introduction
It is generally acknowledged that development in text linguistics from the 1960s has
greatly promoted the practice of translation theories. Before the 1960s, linguists had
pursued their linguistic research within the level of sentence. They confined their study to
the sentence level and took sentence as the basic unit of translation. However, translation is
a special kind of communication between people of different language groups, and should
be centered on the communicative information or meaning. As the inferiorities in
traditional grammar and sentence-based linguistics are becoming more and more obvious,
the main research object of linguistics is no longer restricted to the language system.
Instead, how language is used in various communicative situations is becoming a major
focus in the field of linguistics research. It has been realized that the basic unit of
communication, which conveys a complete idea by itself, is text, not sentence. Linguists
have shifted their attention to the study of text and discourse analysis, and the focus of
language study has changed from the level of word, sentence or even paragraph up to the
textual level. Ultimately the function of language has been referred to as the function of
text. Considered as the basic unit of information, text is the ultimate linguistic unit to do
with communication.
Halliday can be considered as a pioneer in this field. His Cohesion in English (1976),
An introduction to Functional Grammar (1985), and Context and Text (1985) have helped
us to better understand the English language on textual level.
With the development of discourse analysis, translation studies have come to a
brand-new filed. In fact, many scholars at home and abroad have done much research
about applying text analysis theory into translation studies and practice. In 1981, Wolfram
Wilss, a German linguist and translation theorist, published a book The Science of
Translation—Problems and Methods(1982). In his book, Wilss states that “linguistics
communication always appears in textual form”. “Translation,” he says, “is a text-oriented
event. It follows from this that the most pertinent definition of translation is text-oriented.”
(1982: 112) Basil Hatim views translating as an act of communication in a certain situation.
In his Text and the Translator (2001) and Communication Across Culture—Translating
1
Theory and Contrastive Text Linguistics (2001), he traces the path which leads from
context analysis to the study of the structural patterns of texts. Context is greatly
emphasized in his works. He states, “In broad terms, we would say that context exerts a
determining influence on the structure, ultimately, the pragmatic texture of text.” (Hatim &
Masan, 2001:223) All this has given a great push to the application of linguistic theories to
translation studies in China. Scholars such as Wang Dechun, Hu Zhuanglin, Li Yunxing
and Zhang Delu have made remarkable research in the field of text linguistics and
translation studies. Li Yunxing’s An Introduction to Textual Translation (2001) is the first
book to discuss translation within the theoretical framework of text linguistics, which
constitutes a great effort to turn translation studies from a static point of view based on
analysis of words and sentences to a dynamic one on texts.
The thesis concerns with one important concept in text linguistics, that is, text
coherence. As is known, coherence is an essential factor that distinguishes a text from a
non-text. However, it was originally not a linguistic concept, nor a theoretical concept.
Actually it is not until the publication of Cohesion in English by Halliday and Hasan that
the term “coherence” began to attract real attention. For the last twenty years, foreign
experts in linguistic field have attached greater and greater importance to the study of
coherence as an essential factor of text. These researches mainly focus on the relationship
between coherence and texture as well as coherence and cohesion. “Cohesion and
coherence are the center of text analysis theory.” (Hu Zhuanglin, 1994: iii) The present
author tries to focus attention on the discussion of the standards of coherence, in other
words, the factors that affect or decide text coherence in a text. Based on the views of
many scholars, the thesis makes out two major factors, cohesion and context, the latter of
which can be further divided into situational context and cultural context. Each of these
two major factors as well as their application in translation practice is further discussed in
great detail.
In Chapter 1, the author conducts a brief study on the concepts of text and coherence
and discusses the two major factors influencing the coherence of a text.
In Chapter 2 and Chapter 3, the main body of this thesis, the writer elaborates on the
application of these two factors in translation respectively in terms of cohesion and context
of situation and culture through studies of many examples.
2
The thesis concludes that in the process of translation, a proper understanding of the
factors of text coherence can help the translators not only to correctly figure out the
meaning of the original text, but also to make out an equivalent and coherent target text.
3
Chapter 1 Theoretical Basis
1.1 Text and Texture
“Linguistics communication always appears in textual form.” (Wilss, 1982: 112) With
the development of text linguistics, the focus of language study has changed from the level
of word, sentence or even paragraph up to the textual level. Ultimately the function of
language has been referred to as the function of text. Considered as the basic unit of
information, text is the ultimate linguistic unit to do with communication. However, no
complete agreements so far have been reached on the interpretations of text.
Halliday and Hasan define text as that, “the term text is used in linguistics to refer to
any passage, spoken or written, of whatever length, that does form a unified whole.” They
add, “It may be prose or verse, dialogue or monologue. It may be anything from a single
proverb to a whole play, from a momentary cry for help to an all-day discussion on a
committee.” (Halliday & Hasan, 1976: 1-2)
Hatim interprets text as “a set of mutually relevant communication functions
structured in such a way as to achieve an overall rhetorical purpose.” (Hatim & Mason,
2001: 243) Brown and Yule view text as “the verbal record of communicative event; it is
an instance of language in use rather than language as an abstract system of meaning and
relations.” (2000: 6)
Despite all the differences in explanations of text, it is generally recognized that text,
the basic unit of communication, is the combination of linguistic units structured
semantically, stylistically and pragmatically in a coherent way. A text is expected to be
coherent both internally and externally in spite of its size and communicative form.
Text linguistics is also called “discourse analysis”. There has been a degree of
confusion in text linguistics over the definitions of “text” and “discourse.” (Bell, 2001: 149)
However it seems now to most linguists that the two different terms do not mean to
represent different domains of the language, but rather reflect a distinction in focus. It is
worth mentioning that the distinction between “discourse” and “text” is not clear-cut
because both terms can be used in a much broader sense to include all language units with
4
a communicative function, spoken or written. Therefore, for the sake of convenience and
unity, “text” and “discourse” are used interchangeably in the thesis.
Then what makes a text different from a collection of unrelated words or sentences is
a matter of degree. It is the properties of a text that distinguish it from a disconnected
sequence of words or sentences. A text can be a unit of language, but it is not simply a
grammatical unit, like a clause or sentence. Within the text, the elements are closely linked
to each other in meaning. “A text is best regarded as a semantic unit: a unit not of form but
of meaning.” (Halliday, 1976:2)
As has been mentioned above, a text has certain properties that make it distinguished
from a non-text. Any text has features of organization that a non-text does not have. Any
text, in any language, exhibits certain linguistics features, which allows the reader to
identify it as a text. In other words, such properties make a text a text instead of a group of
unrelated sentences. A text has texture, which indicates its elements have a certain kind of
meaning relations. “Textual is a matter of meaning relations.” (Halliday & Hasan, 1985:71)
It is displayed by certain kinds of semantic relations between its elements.
1.2 Coherence as an Important Feature of Text
Coherence is a very important concept in the theory of text linguistics. It is an
essential factor that distinguishes a text from a non-text. A text is not a random collection
of sentences or paragraphs, but a connected group of sentences or paragraphs with
semantic relations. Its elements are closely connected with one another in meaning. That is,
these elements cohere together in meaning as a unified coherent whole. A text, in
whatsoever form, without coherence, would not be a text, but simply a sequence of
disconnected clauses or sentences.
Broadly speaking, coherence is a network of conceptual relations which organizes and
creates a text. In terms of translation, text coherence plays a significant role both in the
understanding of source text and the reproduction of content and form of the target text. A
proper understanding of coherence will undoubtedly help the translator a lot in the
translation process.
With regards to this term, however, linguists hold many different views. It is sure that
5
coherence has something to do with text, but disputes arise as for what is exactly the
relationship between them.
Halliday & Hasan, in Cohesion in English, put forward their cohesion and register
model in light of coherence. After that, they further elaborate their model of coherence in
their book Language, Context, and Text, in which, they say, “Every text is also a context
for itself. A text is characterized by coherence; it hangs together.” (1976: 287)
Widdowson was the first linguist to place the concept of coherence into a theoretical
frame. He concludes that cohesion is best defined as “the overt, linguistically-signaled
relationship between propositions”. (1978:3) Coherence, on the other hand, is defined as
“the relationship between illocutionary acts”. (1978:28) Here, coherence is treated as a
pragmatic concept, the use of language in situations.
Van Dijk in his Text and Context (1997:95) holds that coherence consists of two types:
“linear or sequential coherence, i.e., the coherence relations holding between propositions
expressed by composite sentences and sequences of sentences”; and “the global or overall
coherence, which is determined by macrostructure.” Here we can see that he treats
coherence as a semantic concept, the semantic relations of different dimensions holding
between elements within the text.
Brown and Yule indicate that: “Human beings do not require formal textual markers
before they are prepared to interpret a text. They naturally assume coherence, and interpret
the text in the light of that assumption.” (2000:66)
According to De Beaugrande & Dressler, coherence is defined as the procedures
which ensure conceptual connectivity, including logical relations, organization of events,
objects and situations, and continuity in human experience. It concerns “the way in which
the components of the textual world which underlie the surface text are mutually accessible
and relevant.” (1981:4)
The above-mentioned opinions are based on certain linguistic theories and are valid in
one or two aspects, but none of them is comprehensive or systematic enough in covering
all the aspects of coherence. Some of them are restricted inside the text, without taking into
account the factors outside the text that influence the coherence of text, such as social and
cultural factors, and some of them overlooked the role cohesive ties play in coherence.
6
1.3 Two Major Factors Influencing the Achievement of Textual
Coherence
What are the standards of coherence? In other words, what affects or decides textual
coherence? According to Zhang Delu (2003), the factors of text coherence can be broadly
categorized into inner factors and outer factors of a text. Here, inner factors concern with
text itself. The coherence of a text can be displayed by linguistic forms, but linguistic
forms can express only explicit meaning and suggest presupposed meaning. However, the
implied meaning by the shared knowledge, common cultural background, and situational
context cannot be shown explicitly by linguistic forms. In this way there may be some
missing links in language, which need to be inferred by both the addresser and addressee
by making use of their shared knowledge, common cultural background and situational
context to infer the meaning. Therefore, outer factors here particularly refer to text of
situation and culture.
1.3.1 Cohesion
1.3.1.1 The Definition of Cohesion
The definition of cohesion is first used as a linguistic term by M.A.K Halliday when
he defines it as a semantic interrelation which occurs when “the interpretation of some
element in the discourse is dependent on that of another”. (Halliday, 1976:4) Mona Baker
accepts that linguistic term and puts it in a plainer way: “Cohesion is the network of
surface relationships which link words and expressions to other words and expressions in a
text.” (Baker, 2000:218)
Cohesion contributes a great deal to the unity of a text as a surface network. What it
connects are not abstract concepts or propositions but words or expression equally open to
every reader or hearer.
1.3.1.2 The Classification of Cohesion
Cohesion is achieved by cohesive ties or cohesive devices. Halliday and Hasan (1976)
7
classify cohesive devices into five types: reference, substitution, ellipsis, conjunction and
lexical cohesion, the first four of which are grammatical devices and the last of which is a
lexical one.
Reference
In Halliday’s model of cohesion, “reference occurs when the reader has to retrieve the
identity of what is being talked about by referring to another expression in the immediate
context.” (Baker, 2000: 181) The following is an example:
Mike is a nice and guy and everybody likes him.
The pronoun “him” refers to “Mike” within the textual world. Here the understanding
of that pronoun presupposes the retrieval of its identity by referring to the linguistic context.
Obviously reference in textual sense is distinguished from reference in semantic sense,
which denotes the relationship holding between a word and what it points to in the real
world.
Substitution
In substation, an item (or items) is (are) replaced by another item (or items). Halliday
divides substitution into three categories, namely nominal substitution, verbal substitution
and clausal substitution, as in the following examples:
a. This coat is too tight. Please show me another one.
(A case of nominal substitution where “one” replaces “coat”)
b. —We all hate being cheated.
—Yes, everybody does.
(A case of verbal substitution where “does” replaces “hates being cheated”)
c. —Will Julie marry Tim?
—I think so.
(A case of clausal substitution where “so” replaces the preceding sentence)
Ellipsis
Ellipsis involves the omission of an item. In other words, in ellipsis an item is
replaced by nothing. So it is also known as “substitution by zero”. It occurs when the
grammatical structure suggests an item or items suitable for the slot in question.
Conjunction
Conjunction involves the use of formal markers to relate sentences and paragraphs to
8
each other. Unlike reference and substitution, it does not presuppose the identity of the
meaning of two items in the text; unlike ellipsis, it does not call for the reader’s efforts to
fill in a structural slot with some item(s) in the immediate context. Instead, it is used as
signals to bring out the logical relationship between sentences. In Halliday’s model,
conjunction falls into four categories, additive, adversative, causal and temporal.
Lexical Cohesion
Lexical cohesion is “the role played by the selection of vocabulary in organizing
relations within a text”. “A single lexical item is not cohesive per se but it may fill into a
cohesive relation with other items in a text.” (Baker, 2000:202)
There are two types of lexical cohesion in Halldiay’s theory: reiteration and
collocation. Reiteration, as the name suggests, involves repetition of lexical items. The
repetition may take the form of an earlier term, a synonym, a superordinate or a general
word. (Baker, 2000: 203)
Collocation “covers any instance which involves a pair or a group of lexical items that
are associated with each other in the language in some way.” (Ibid)
1.3.1.3 The Relationship between Cohesion and Coherence
The study of cohesion as a texture-creating device in texts has been stated by Halliday
and Hasan (1976). The relation between cohesion and coherence has been a source of a
great deal of discussion. And the function of cohesion in the achievement of coherence has
always been the focus of dispute.
Halliday and Hasan (1976, 1985) have always studied cohesion while keeping in
mind its relationship with textual coherence. They consider cohesion as a necessary though
not sufficient condition for the creation of text. They maintain that the coherence of a text
should be reflected through the language itself, and one of the important ways is through
the cohesion of language. Their viewpoint is fully displayed in the following statement
(1985: 94): “Texture is thus essential to textual unity, and cohesion is the foundation upon
which the edifice of coherence is built.”
Their point of view has been criticized by many linguists, who point out that cohesion
is neither the necessary nor the sufficient condition for textual coherence. Cohesion does
9
not necessarily create coherence and the absence of cohesion does not necessarily lead to
the absence of coherence. Enkvist (1978) holds that cohesion isn’t sufficient to guarantee
identification as a text and in order to prove his opinion he gives a famous example, which
has been widely cited as a counter-example to Halliday and Hasan’s theory of cohesion:
I bought a Ford. A car in which President Wilson rode down the Champs Ekysees was
black. Black English has been widely discussed. The discussion between the presidents
ended last week. A week has seven days. Every day I feed my cat. Cats have four legs. The
cat is on the mat. Mat has three letters.
Enkvist (1978) used the term pseudo-coherent to refer to such texts. It seems that they
hold together, but the elements do not produce a sensible whole and such a piece of writing
cannot be called coherent.
Widdowson (1979), Brown & Yule (1983) and Stubbs (1983) maintain that a coherent
text is not necessarily cohesive. Here is an example given by Widdowson (1978:96):
A: Can you go to Edingburgh tomorrow?
B: B.E.A. pilots are on strike.
Although there aren’t any cohesive ties in this text, the meaning expressed by B can
be well understood. Therefore the text can be considered coherent.
Halliday and Hasan (1985) think that cohesion is a necessary but not a sufficient
factor in producing the discourse. Coherence in the English discourse does not necessarily
depend on cohesive devices. But cohesion is always a surface language means to guarantee
coherence in many conditions.
However, Halliday and Hasan have never intended the term cohesion to be synonym
for coherence, which is clear from their definition of text: “A text is a passage of discourse
which is coherent in these two regards: it is coherent with respect to the context of situation,
and therefore consistent in register; and it is coherent with respect to itself, and therefore
cohesion.” (1976:23) Coherence is the contextual, external properties of a text whereas
cohesion is the internal properties of a text.
Hu Zhuanglin (1996) holds that cohesion and coherence are closely connected.
Cohesion is the relation between language meaning and its formal markers, while
coherence is the relation between language meaning and context.
10
Actually, a text is not only a static product, but also a dynamic process, which is the
interaction between language users in mutual communication, and coherence is a mental as
well as social phenomenon jointly constructed by the participants in a social interaction.
Thus, it is hard to cover the factors influencing the perception of coherence without
considering the situational, social and cultural elements relevant to the production and
understanding of a text
1.3.2 Context
1.3.2.1 The Definition of Context
The concept of context is rather difficult to deal with and remains a controversial
problem. As far as linguistics is concerned, different schools and scholars have different
definitions for context. It is commonly acknowledged that the phrase was first used in
English by Malinowski, an anthropologist.
Basing on Malinowski’s notions, such as those of situation and culture, Firth
maintains that “context of situation could include participants in speech events, the action
taking place, other relevant features of the situation and the effects of the verbal action.
These variables are amenable to linguistic analysis and are therefore useful in making
statements about meaning”. (1975: 7-33)
According to Halliday and Hasan (1985), context is no longer just an abstract concept
concerning the environment in which language is used, but an abstract theoretical category
in which language can be interpreted from the perspective of semiotics.
Sperber and Wilson suggest that “the context does much more than filter out
inappropriate interpretations; it provides premises without which the implicature cannot be
inferred at all.” (2001:238)
Chinese linguists have also put forward their own ideas about ‘context’. Hu Zhuanglin
(1994) in his Discourse Cohesion and Coherence points out that the term ‘context’ can be
used extensively with different meanings. It may refer to the circumstance within the
discourse (linguistic context or co-text); it may refer to the physical environment in which
a discourse is produced (situation context); it may refer to the historical knowledge, local
conditions and customs shared by a discourse community (cultural context). These three
11