A Comparative Study On Textual Cohesion In Chinese And English Text Of Moment In Peking

Moment in Peking, which has been regarded as one of the most outstanding literary works in both home and abroad,was written by Dr. Lin Yutang who is an excellent writer in both Chinese and English. He is also a rare talent that can master both Chinese and English culture. Among all the Chinese versions, Yu Dafu and Yu Fei’s translation, Shun Xi Jing Hua, is the most faithful one.There are so many achievements on cohesion theory, among which the most remarkable theory is put forward by Halliday and Hasan in 1976 by writing the book Cohesion in English which marks the foundation of cohesion theory. According to Halliday and Hasan, cohesion can be divided into grammatical cohesion and lexical cohesion. This thesis makes a comparison between Chinese and English text of Moment in Peking in using cohesive devices to show the differences and similarities of the cohesive devices between Chinese and English. In this thesis, we can find that most of the differences between Chinese and English are the differences between parataxis and hypotaxis. Because of this, Chinese emphasizes expressing the meaning without considering grammar and structure. But English pays more attention to the structures of the sentences and texts.This thesis has made a relatively comprehensive study on cohesion theory and gives readers a relatively compete understanding and grasp of this theory. By comparing the use of cohesive devices, this thesis may give the translators a guidance. They will know clearly about the features of cohesive devices in the two languages then they can choose different devices accurately to be used in the two kinds of texts and making the texts coherent.In order to achieve the purpose of this study, there are three main methods adopted to conduct this thesis. The methods contain literature review, data analysis and comparative method. The three methods are adopted to provide detailed and clear information about the different uses of each cohesive device in the Chinese and English texts of Moment in Peking and make a further comparison about these Chinese and English examples.This thesis contains five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction to the thesis. In this part, there is some information about the background, objective and significance of the study and the methods used in this thesis. Chapter two is the literature review which includes the establishment and development on the theory of textual cohesion and some studies on Moment in Peking in China. Chapter three gives a detailed explanation on every cohesive device. Chapter four is the center and the most important part of the thesis. In this part, the author will make the two languages compared to find out the similarities and differences on every cohesive device used in the two languages. The last chapter is the conclusion of the whole thesis which finally summarizes the results of the comparison and the thesis also includes some limitations that needs more studies and improvement.