Abstract
In translation courses, students are asked to practice translation skills by translating a source text (ST) in a specific field. While teachers usually select texts based on topic and language accuracy, some such texts do not provide rich textual features that help students practice and improve their translation skills. This study aimed to analyze the cohesive features in business texts collected from “Investopedia” to investigate their suitability for use as STs to practice translation skills in the field of finance and administration. It was framed by Halliday’s (1978) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) approach to language and Halliday and Hassan’s (1976) cohesion analysis scheme. The findings demonstrated that the most prominent type used was lexical cohesion, followed by reference and conjunctions. Ellipses and substitution were rarely used. The findings indicated that the intensive use of lexical cohesion and the various subcategories used in these texts can help enrich the background knowledge of financial terminology and provide a communicative understanding of the ST while practicing various elements of textual features. The study provided a demonstration of the significance of SFL in providing coherent and cohesive STs that facilitate the needs of translation instructors and students in the field of finance and administration. Other SFL tools can be employed to provide a better understanding of these texts.
Highlights
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) views language as a system rather than a structure, and it examines meaning beyond grammar, which is evident in cohesion analysis (Martin, 2016)
The findings indicated that the intensive use of lexical cohesion and the various subcategories used in these texts can help enrich the background knowledge of financial terminology and provide a communicative understanding of the source text (ST) while practicing various elements of textual features
Substitution and ellipses are expressed through grammar, lexical cohesion is expressed through meaning, and conjunctions are both grammatical and lexical (Alyousef, 2020)
Summary
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL) views language as a system rather than a structure, and it examines meaning beyond grammar, which is evident in cohesion analysis (Martin, 2016). Halliday and Hassan (1976) identified five types of cohesive devices which are substitution, ellipses, lexical cohesion, reference, and conjunctions. These cohesive devices are achieved through grammatical and lexical words. Substitution and ellipses are expressed through grammar, lexical cohesion is expressed through meaning (or lexis), and conjunctions are both grammatical and lexical (Alyousef, 2020). Textual cohesion is an essential linguistic element in translation studies, as meanings are communicated coherently and cohesively in both the source (or original) text (ST) and the target (translated) text (TT). Students are encouraged to practice their translations through exposure to authentic material with rich cohesive and coherent features
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