The Soul Of London: Implicit Cohesion And Translation Strategies

This thesis is a report on a translation project.The source text is Chapter land Chapter 2 of The Soul of London by the English writer Ford Madox Ford.The book is a comprehensive representation of London in early 20th Century,showing the life condition and socio-cultural environment of the metropolis.The book is written in prose that combines vivid description and deep feeling.It shows a cosmopolitan understanding and a humorous writing style.But the jumping characteristic of the author’s description presents difficulty for a quick and thorough understanding of the text.Therefore,it requires the translator to pay special attention to the author’s writing style and wording features in order to accomplish a faithful and smooth translation.The original text is characteristic of long difficult sentences and involved structures.If the translator set out to work only in accordance to the explicit cohesion,the translation would be flawed with jagged expressions and the meanings would tend to confuse.Therefore,based on the concept of implicit cohesion,I have studied the implicit cohesion in long sentences,the implicit cohesion embedded in the logical relationship between sentences and the implicit cohesion suggested in cultural contexts.Then I suggest three corresponding strategies or skills to deal with those difficulties.That is,(1)in some cases,we should keep the original implicit cohesion;(2)sometimes we should change the original implicit cohesion to explicit cohesion,and(3)on other occasions we should add transitional words to make clear the hidden logic relationships.And the conclusion of the report is that it is important for a translator to have a clear sense of the logic relationships in the original text and a sharp awareness of cultural differences and that good translation requires the translator to use different cohesive devices to clearly convey the logical relationships—explicit and implicit relationships—in the target language.