Thematic Progression Theory and Discourse Translation: A Case Study of The Gift of the Magi

Lijun LI, Yi CHEN

Abstract


In recent years, the Systemic Functional Grammar has long been viewed as providing a powerful framework for discourse analysis, in which thematic structure, information structure and cohesion are three key tools to realize the textual meta-function. Meanwhile, the emergence of thematic theory and thematic progression theory (TP theory) has attracted great attention in linguistics. TP theory has been thought of as a potentially analytic mean for decomposing discourses in translation. This paper spares no efforts to present the practical values of thematic progression in discourse translation by analyzing a short story, The Gift of the Magi, by O·Henry and its Chinese version translated by Wang Yongnian, a famous and prestigious translator, based on the thematic theory and TP theory respectively proposed by Halliday and Danes, and thus giving some hints to E-C short stories’ translation.

 


Keywords


Thematic theory; Thematic progression; Discourse translation

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References


Dong, D. H., & Lan, Y. S. (2001). Textual competence and the use of cohesion devices in translating into a second language. The Interpreter and Translator, (1), 47-48.

Halliday, M. A. K. (2000). An introduction to function grammar. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press.

Hu, Z. L. (2005). An introduction to systemic functional linguistics. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Huang, Y. (1985). On theme and rheme. Journal of Foreign Languages, (5), 32-36.

Martin, J. R. (2004). English text: System and structure. Beijing: Peking University Press.

Mathesius, V. (1939). On Functional Sentence Perspective. Slovo a Slovensnost, (7), 169-180.

Zhang, Y. (2011). Study on Theme-Rheme pattern modal of English advertisement discourse. Overseas English, (5), 11-12.




DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/10243

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