On Discourse Translation from the Perspective of Theme and Rheme

Abstract

In the late 1930s, VilemMathesius, founder the Prague Linguistic Circle, put forward the concept of Theme and Rheme. Later, in 1960s, Jan Firbas, member of the Prague Linguistic Circle, proposed Communicative Dynamism (CD), which is based on context. Many domestic and foreign scholars have done lots of research on the theme and rheme of English from the aspect of sentence, but seldom discuss and verify the concept of theme and rheme from the perspective of text or context. Based on theme and rheme, communicative dynamism (CD) and the language differences between English and Chinese, this paper focuses on the influence of context on the CD value of the theme and rheme and analyzes the coherence of English and Chinese translation from the perspective of context.Through the above analysis, we can safely draw the conclusion that the psychological theme is not necessarily the core of thematic progression according to its function of CD. And psychological theme of discourse may also be the premise of speech but not the progressed information (CD+). With the comparison and contrast between English version and Chinese version, the following research would hope to distinguishbetween Chinese discourse progressing and its English counterparts.