缺陷关于,A Study on the Tranormation of Thematic Structure in the Literature Transla

Abstract: this thesis applies the most important concept—thematic structure into the analysis of the literature translation and makes the comparative analysis between the original version and Sun Zhili’s Chinese translation of Pride and Prejudice to figure out the differences in the process of English-Chinese translation. In the English-Chinese translation, the tranormation of thematic structure is one of common skills.
Key word: Theme, Rheme, Tranormation of the structure, Pride and Prejudice

1.Introduction

This thesis makes the comparative analysis between the original version and Sun Zhili’s Chinese translation of Pride and Prejudiceto specify the phenomenon of tranormation of the thematic structure. Thematic structure is the most important concept in the discourse analysis. It is put up with by Mathesius of the Prague School . Theme/rheme is also a system for organizing the other two functions to produce clauses and sentences which are appropriate and coherent in their context. Theme functions as the “starting point for the message” [3]. Rheme is the rest of the message [4]. Li (1976) argues that one obvious difference in the syntactic structure is that Chinese emphasizes on the topic-prominent and English focuses on the subject-prominent [5]. The so-called “subject-prominent” refers to the importance of the subject which is an indispensable grammatical component in each clause. There exists the consistent relation of person and number between the subject in the theme and the predicate verb in the rheme. “Topic-prominent” means the subject in Chinese is not important and can be omitted; otherwise the topic is very important.
2. A Comparative review on the English and the Chinese Versions of Pride and Prejudice
As follow is the original paragraph:
(1)Mr. Darcy’s letter, she was in a fair way of soon knowing by heart. (8) but she could not approve him; (11) In her own past behior, there was a constant source of vexation and regret; (13) They were hopeless of remedy.(14) Her father contented with laughing at them, would never exert himself to restrain the wild giddiness of his youngest daughters. (Jane Austin: Pride and Prejudice, Volume II, Chapter 14)
Sun Zhili’s translation:
(1)达西先生那封信，她都快要背出来了（8）但她却无法对他产生好感(11）她以往的行为经常使她感到烦恼和懊悔（13）这些缺陷是无可救药的(14)父亲对这些缺陷只是一笑置之，几个小女儿都那么放荡轻佻，他也以来不加以管束In the book Language and Translation[6], Sun Zhili’s translation has been analyzed in the aspect of thematic-information structure. It concludes that Sun’snot only pay attention to the tranormation of the content of the original language, but also emphasize on the tranormation of the structure. We can see the following sentences of the original texts:
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