4.2 Translation Strategies of Topic Chains
4.2.3 The second strategy: Establishing Textuality
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demarcation. Punctuation marks, on the other hand, are relatively weak demarcation markers. Only semicolons are more likely to be reflected.
4.2.3 The second strategy: Establishing Textuality
Although markers are quite helpful in demarcating a Chinese topic chain into different units, there are some topic chains that have no markers except for commas, which, according to the discussion in section 4.2.2, are weak demarcation markers.
Such topic chains contain very limited linguistic markers as reference for translators to demarcate. Other strategies are thus employed by translators to decide the structure of EnUs.
From analyzing information packaging in such topic chains and in their English translation, we have found the second strategy—Establishing Textuality. This strategy means that translators demarcate the Chinese topic chains into units based on the internal textual relationship. As previous literature has indicated (Cheng, 1997; Huang, 2007; Pang, 1997; Yang, 2006), some Chinese topic chains contain clauses of parallel syntactical structures. However, they do not always express parallel information (Kwan, 1997). Some clauses may be more closely linked together than others. Such semantic relationships constitute internal textual relationships of a topic chain. In treating these topic chains, translators will first identify the textual relationships of the
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clauses within a topic chain, and then transfer them to English relationships. Below is an example for illustration.
(12)
(a) 例如， 由 英國 藝術史家 Liru you Yingguo yishu-shi-jia For example, by British art-history-scholar
朱利安‧史帖拉布雷斯設計的〈路面房〉i，19
Zhulian Shitielabuleisi sheji-de lumian-fangi, Julian Stallabrass design-DE pavement-room 將 房間 布置得 有如 街道 一般，
jiang fangjian buzhi-de youru jiedao yiban, make room decorate-DE like street look
(a’) Art room 2 (“The Architecture of the Pavement”), designed by British art historian Julian Stallabrass, is set up to look like a street scene.
(b) 0i床單 是 柏油路 的 大圖 輸出，
0i chuang-dan shi boyou-lu de da-tu shuchu, bed-sheet is tar-road of big-picture print
(b’) The bed covers resemble pavement, the furniture takes furniture is park bench and street-lamp (d) 0i甚至 抱枕 也 做成
0i shenzhi baozhen ye zuocheng even couch-pillow too be-made 水溝蓋 圖案。
shuigou-gai tuan.
sewer-cover picture
(Taiwan Panorama, April, 2013, pp. 54-55)
This example contains four parallel Chinese clauses linked by commas. The four ChUs are translated into two English sentences. The only boundary markers found in the Chinese topic chain are the full NP topic lumian-fang (路面房) ‘pavement-room,’
modified by a relative clause and commas at the end of each ChU. The full NP topic
19 This comma is not regarded as a boundary marker because it is considered a topic marker, which appears between the topic and the comment (cf. Tsao, 1979).
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marks the beginning of the topic chain and the commas at the end of each ChU are weak references for demarcation. Without other markers to signal the continuity breaks within the topic chain, translators resort to the internal textuality for
demarcation. In this example, clause (a) is a general description about the pavement room whereas clauses (b)-(d) provide detailed descriptions of the specific items in the room. Despite the lack of textual relationship markers, it is still obvious that clause (a) and clauses (b)-(d) form a general-specific textual relationship. This internal textual relationship serves as reference for demarcation in English translation. The
general-specific relationship is established more clearly in the English translation. The English sentence (a’) is a general description and the English sentence (b’) is a
specific description.
Among the collected 58 topic chains, 21 topic chains (36%) show the use of this strategy. Table 10 below presents the distribution of use of the Establishing Textuality strategy in different types of topic chains.
Table 10
Types of Topic Chains Showing Use of Establishing Textuality
Types of topic chains Number of topic chains (%)
(1) Typical topic chain 11 (52%)
(2) Topic chain with embedding 2 (10%)
(3) Telescopic chain 2 (10%)
(4) Zero-form topic in the first clause 1 (5%)
(5) No overt topic 1 (5%)
(6) Chain with more than one overt form of the same topic 4 (19%)
Total 21 (100%)
Among all the 21 topic chains that use the Establishing Textuality strategy, typical
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topic chains account for more than half (52%) of the data. Such large proportion of typical topic chains suggests that Establishing Textuality is helpful in dealing with typical topic chains. Typical topic chains, as discussed previously, have the topic established in the first clause and then the topic is continued in the form of zero.
Without the overt topics marking the continuity breaks in the following clauses, translators tend to adopt the second strategy, Establishing Textuality.
There are four types of textual relationships observed in this strategy: (1) general-specific, (2) cause-effect, (3) background-foreground, and (4)
foreground-evaluation. Example (12) above is an illustration of general-specific.
Example (13) below presents the cause-effect relationship.
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these 4 CLASS school all are female-principal
(a’) It’s quite a coincidence that all four of our schools have female principals.
(b) 0i常 會 以 媽媽的 角度 chang hui yi mama-de jiaodu often will with mother-POSS perspective 思索如何 讓 孩子 吃得 更好，
sisuo ruhe rang haizi chi-de genghao think how make children eat-DE better
(b’) We all have a tendency to mother our students a bit, to seek ways to get them to eat better, which is how we got into organics.
(c) 0i才 會 毅然決然地 投入有機 飲食 吧！
cai hui yiranjuerandi tou-ru youji yinshi ba CAI will determinedly throw-in organic diet PART
(Taiwan Panorama, April, 2013, p. 25)
In this example, apart from the first full NP topic and the two commas, there are no
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other markers. Although textual markers are absent, the cause-effect relationship can be derived from the passage. Clause (a) provides the cause for clauses (b)-(c). The fact that they are female principals explains why they are concerned for their students’
diet, which in turn leads to their determination to provide organic diet. The adverb caihui (才會) ‘will’ in the topic chain indicates the causal relation. The translator
establishes this cause-effect relationship by separating (a) from (b)-(c). Clause (a) is translated into (a’), which presents the cause, and clauses (b)-(c) are combined into (b’), which shows the result. Nonetheless, it should be noted that there is some room for different interpretations of the textual relationships when there are no overt textual markers. For example, clauses (a)-(b) in (13) can be considered cause while clause (c), effect.
Example (14) below presents both background-foreground and foreground-evaluation in one single topic chain.
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1989 nian Bolin weiqiang daota, 1989 year Berlin Wall collapse
(a’) Headquartered in London, the EBRD was founded in 1991, about a year and a half after the
zongbu weiyu Yingguo Lundun, headquarter locate U.K. London (c) 0i 是 冷戰 結束 後 歐洲 新興的
0i shi Lengzhan jieshu hou Ouzhou xinxingde is Cold War end after Europe new 區域性 開發 援助 機構，
quyuxing kaifa yuanzhu jigou, regional development support association
(b’) It serves as a regional development entity for emerging economies in post-Cold-War Europe, and works to support economic development in 34 countries in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
(d) 0i 致力於 協助 東歐 與 中亞 0i zhili yu xiezhu Dong-Ou yu Zhong-Ya
dedicate to help East-Europe and Central-Asia
境內 34 個 國家的 經濟 發展，
jing-nei 34 ge guojia-de jingji fazhan border-in 34 MEA national-POSS economy development
(e) 0i就 像 是 小規模的 世界 銀行， sort of miniature World Bank or Asian Development Bank.
(Taiwan Panorama, April, 2013, p. 41)
Example (14) can be divided into three discourse units: background information, foreground information, and evaluation. Clauses (a)-(b) provide background
20 This comma marks a topic.
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information for the topic Ouzhou fuxing kaifa yinhang (歐洲復興開發銀行)
‘European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD).’ Clauses (c)-(d) are foreground information, describing the function and goal of EBRD. The last clause, clause (e) makes an evaluation by providing a metaphor for EBRD.
The three sections form a linear order. Background information usually appears at the beginning of a topic chain. It usually contains background knowledge like time, place, or previous events. Then, foreground information presents the most important information about the topic in the topic chain. After the foreground information is presented, evaluation may come at the end of a topic chain. An evaluation is like a comment on the foreground information. It can be achieved by a metaphor like example (14) or simply by an adjective phrase.
In fact, the background and evaluation components of discourse have been previously discussed either in narrative genre or in argumentative genre. In the narrative genre, six structural elements of personal oral narrative are identified by Labov (1972): abstract, orientation, complicating actions, evaluation, resolution and coda. Orientation provides the setting of a narrative, such as time, place and
characters. This is similar to background in the present study. Evaluation values the narrative either from the characters’ perspective or from the writer’s perspective. In argumentative genre, Tirkkonen-Condit (as cited in Connor, 1996) proposes a
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four-unit structure which includes situation, problem, solution, and evaluation. The situation part gives background knowledge of time, place, character, and event to the
reader. We can find that background and evaluation each marks the beginning and final part of a discourse organization.
The frequency count of each textual relationship dealt with by this strategy is provided in Table 11. Different textual relationships may appear in different sections of a topic chain so a topic chain may show a combination of different textual
relationships.
Table 11
Numbers of Each Textual Relationship Dealt with by Establishing Textuality
Types of textual relationships Number of Topic Chains (%)
(1) foreground-evaluation 9 (43%)
(2) general-specific 6 (29%)
(3) background-foreground 3 (14%)
(4) cause-effect 1 (5%)
(5) general-specific + cause-effect 1 (5%)
(6) background-foreground + foreground-evaluation 1 (5%)
Total 21 (100%)
It is found that translators apply the Establishing Textuality strategy to deal with four types of single textual relationships and two combination relationships in the data.
Foreground-evaluation accounts for nearly half of the use of the Establishing
Textuality strategy, followed by genera-specific and background-foreground. Other textual relationships such as time sequence and claim-counterclaim barely involve this strategy because they are usually marked by connectives and are dealt with by the strategy of Reflecting the Markers.
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To summarize, the second strategy—Establishing Textuality—is employed when the units in a topic chain contain only punctuation marks but no NPs, pronouns nor connectives. Since punctuation marks are weak references for demarcation, translators tend to resort to the internal textual relationship. Based on the internal textual
relationship, the Chinese topic chains are segmented into different units and translated into different English sentences accordingly. This strategy is especially helpful in dealing with typical topic chains, which by definition do not have overt topics in the middle of the chain. This strategy is mainly applied to the four unmarked textual relationships: general-specific and cause-effect, background-foreground and foreground-evaluation.