| Chinese has been characterized as a topic-prominent language in which the basic sentence pattern prefers the grammatical relation topic-comment. A topic sentence is composed of two parts:topic which states what the sentence is about and comment which says something about the topic. These two parts interact with each other at syntactic, semantic and discoursal levels:syntactically, topic occupies the sentence-initial position while comment as the second, forming a bamboo-like structure; semantically, topic and comment are bonded by relatedness; discoursally, topic sets the starting point for the clauses which are under its domain to form a topic chain; topic represents the discourse theme in control of comment which stands for the serialization of information to be communicated. Linked by the semantic correlation "aboutness", a topic-comment sentence is flexible, paratactic and diffusive. On the whole, the construction of topic-comment sentences is mainly based on meaning.Different from Chinese, English is defined as a subject-prominent language in which the basic sentence pattern favors the grammatical relation subject-predicate. Much more complicated than a topic sentence, a subject-predicate sentence is dominated by subject and the verb in the predicate which form the kernel of an English sentence, with other elements such as attributive attached to them, forming a tree-like sentence structure. Controlled by rigorous grammatical rules, a subject-predicate structure is rigid, hypotactic and compact. In a nutshell. subject-predicate sentences are strongly restricted to meaning and grammar.All these remarkable typological distinctions between English and Chinese basic sentence patterns lay solid foundations for our investigation into subject-to-topic shift in E-C translation in which the adjustment of sentence structures is often perceived as a necessary process. Drawn on the previous studies by Xu Lina, this thesis presents four modes of topic-oriented analysis in E-C translation:"subject vs. topic", "object vs. topic", "head vs. topic", and "modifier vs. topic", followed by the operating procedures:cutting the language chunks and arranging them in a logical way.Following this rule of thumb, this present thesis takes as the entry point the topic theories proposed by Li and Thompson (1976) and Tsao Fengfu (1979), analyzes some of the noticeable typological differences lying in English and Chinese sentence structures, makes a comparative analysis of some typical cases from two Chinese versions of The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin by Li Mengyuan and Yao Shanyou respectively, so as to validate the reasonableness and practicality of topic-oriented analytical approaches in E-C translation and to provide some thoughts for translation theoretically and practically. |
