Brief Study on the Differences and Similarities of Reference in Chinese and English

1. Introduction

Cohesion and coherence are of great significance in text. If sentences in a text do not coherent to each other， the text would not make sense or cannot be understood by others. Cohesion is the physical network of discourse， while coherence is the invisible network of it. “Cohesion” was firstly put forward by Halliday in 1962. Later， in his book Cohesion in English， he defined “cohesion” as “exists within the text and makes it a meaningful relation of discourse” （Halliday and Hasan， 1976）. According to Halliday and Hasan， there are two types of cohesive devices， and one is grammatical device， the other is lexical device. Grammatical devices contain reference， substitution， ellipsis and conjunction; lexical device is lexical cohesion. However， reference， as a major part of cohesion， is very important in text analysis. Personal reference， demonstrative reference and comparative reference are included in reference. So the three kinds of references are taken as the theoretical basis in this thesis.

Through contrastive analysis， the author aimed to find the similarities and differences between Chinese and English versions of the report from the perspective of reference. Finding the law of translation of government work report， the translator can get some inspirations in further translation of it.

2.Significance and Features of the Report

Political text is the carrier of the will of the party and the country. The translation of political text carries the burden of propagating Chinas national condition， guidelines and policies， political system and political position to the world. Whats more， with the deepening of reform and opening up， external publicity has become increasingly important. The quality of the translation of political texts has a direct effect on the understanding of Chinas current situation， position and policies for the world. Thus， the importance of the English translation of political texts is self-evident. As a typical government work report， the report of the Nineteenth National Congress of the Communist Party of China is delivered at the transformation period and of great research significance. Whats more， the role of the meeting is to sum up the achievements and shortcomings of the past five years and formulate new guidelines for making a better future.

The government work report is special， and it has its own features.

Firstly， as a formal text， the words of the Nineteenth report are formal and inspiring. For example： “不忘初心，牢記使命”、“高举......旗帜”、“决胜......”、“夺取......伟大胜利”. In this phrase，“不忘初心，牢记使命”is concise and comprehensive， which means that all the Chinese people should remain true to our original aspiration and work hard to realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And the words like “高举”、“决胜”and“夺取”are encouraging and motivational. Usually， when the reader read these words， they would obtain an impetus to work harder.

Secondly， there are many Chinese four-character idioms in the Nineteenth report. This phenomenon would be reflected in the following examples： “全黨同志一定要登高望远、居安思危，勇于变革、勇于创新，永不僵化、永不停滞……” and “……我们坚持稳中求进工作总基调，迎难而上，开拓进取，取得了改革开放和现代化建设的历史性成就” （习近平， 2017： 3）. There are six idioms in the first sentence and three idioms in the second idioms. The use of Chinese idioms can make the text more precise and concise. When reading or hearing these catchy idioms， people would be encouraged. And that is the reason why the political text is so of persuasiveness.

Thirdly， unlike literary works， there are many long sentences in the report because the spokesman wants to make the report identical and concise. The report is loosely organized superficially， however， these ongoing paratactic sentences coherent in terms of content. Sometimes a paragraph only contains one sentence， and the paragraph usually very long.

Last but not least. The major feature of the report is that the sentence in the Chinese version often omits the subject， while in the English version the subject often added as “we”. For example：

（1a）“积极发展社会主义民主政治，推进全面依法治国......” （习近平， 2017： 6）.

（1b）“We have actively developed socialist democracy and advanced law-based governance” （习近平， 2017： 6）.

Sentence （1a） is the Chinese version of the report， which is omit the subject and begin with a verb. It is not rare in the political report， and there are many subjectless clauses and imperative sentences. But in English this phenomenon is totally forbidden. Thus in its translation sentence （1b）， the word “we” is added as the subject. The words is inspiring in Chinese version of the report. The word “we” is affable and it can connect the relationship with the president and the people.

3. Study on Reference

Reference is one of the cohesion devices， which is first put forward by Halliday and Hasan in 1976 in their book Cohesion in English， “in one text， when the explanation of a word cannot be obtained from its own but can be seek the answer from the object referred to in the context ， that forms reference” （Halliday & Hasan， 1976）. Cohesion is the most important device for making a text. It can make the expressions simpler and make the text fully understand.

Halliday and Hasan classified the reference into three types： personal reference， demonstrative reference and comparative reference. （Halliday and Hasan， 1976）. The author would use these references to analyze the Nineteenth report.

The similarities can be found among these two versions after analyzing a series of examples：

（2a） “我们坚持稳中求进工作总基调，迎难而上，开拓进取，取得了改革开放和社会主义现代化建设的历史性成就” （习近平， 2017： 3）.

（2b） “We have upheld the underlying principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability， risen to challenges， pioneered and pushed ahead， and made historic achievements in reform， opening up， and socialist modernization” （习近平， 2017： 3）.

From the above example and some other sentences that the author analyzed from the report， the author found that the first personal reference has high frequencies than other references in the Chinese and English version. That is because this report is telling the government past work and the expectation of governments future work， and the subject of this report is the Chinese government. To make the report more concise and coherent， Chinese word “我们” is take the place of “the Chinese government”. “我们” has been translated into “we” in English. So the first personal reference appears lots of times in this report.

The other significant similarity is that there is almost no reflexive personal reference both in the Chinese and English version of the report. The author cannot find any sentences with reflexive reference in the report. Reflexive personal reference is informal and often appears in informal text or spoken text. However， the government work report is very formal and delivered by authority. Therefore， reflexive personal reference may not appear in the report.

In Chinese version of the report the subject is often omitted while in English version the subject is added usually as “we”. For example， in the following Chinese sentence and their corresponding English translation：

4.2 Demonstrative Reference Used in Chinese and English

Demonstrative reference is a kind of reference which refers to time， space or the position. According to Chen Anding， there are four types of demonstrative references： “（1） 這，这些，那，那些 which refer to the thing or the person; （2） 这里，那里，这儿，那儿 which refer to the position; （3） 这时，那时，这会，那会 which refer to time; （4） 这样，那样 which refer to the situation” （陈安定， 1991： 52）. These demonstrative references have the degree of near or far. “这” or “这里” means the near location while “那” or “那里” means the far location. “这时” refers to the near time while “那时” means the far time. In English， there are just few demonstrative pronouns such as this， that， these and those. The translation of them is corresponding. “This” or “These” are selected to describe the near position or time; “that” or “these” are chosen to refer to the far position or time.

The translation of demonstrative reference between Chinese and English is correspondent. This can be found in the following sentences：

（4a） “这些问题，必须着力加以解决” （习近平， 2017： 13）.

（4b） “These are all problems that demand our full attention to resolve” （习近平， 2017： 13）.

After analyzing some sentences from the report， the author found that the translations of demonstrative references are mostly corresponding. In the sentence （3a） and its English translation sentence （3b）， “这些” was translated into “these” in English. That is quilt normal. But there are also some translations of demonstrative references are not corresponding. In English， there are more demonstrative references. This can be shown in the following sentences：

4.3 Comparative Reference Used in Chinese and English

In Chinese， there are two kinds of comparative reference. That is general comparison which includes “不同的”， “相同的”， “一样的” or “不一样的” etc. And specific comparative which includes “更”or“比” etc. In English， there are also two types of comparison： general comparison and particular comparison. General comparison is the comparison of likeness and unlikeness while the latter is the comparison of the quality or quantity. In general comparison， there are usually some words such as same， similar， identical， likewise etc. While the particular comparison has the words such as more than， better， less than etc.

5. Conclusion

The following are differences of reference using between the Chinese and English version of the report：

First， in terms of personal reference， the appearance frequency of it in the Chinese version is less than that in the English. Because Chinese has many subjectless sentences and imperative sentences， while English sentence cannot without a subject. When translating those subjectless Chinese sentences， the subjects would be added.

Second， in terms of demonstrative reference， the most translations of demonstrative reference are in correspondence. The big difference is that there are more demonstrative reference in the English version of the report. That is because Chinese values parataxis while English values hypotaxis. English text needs more demonstrative reference to connect the clauses.

Thirdly， in comparative reference， there is little difference in comparative reference in two versions. It is easy to express the “more” meaning in English. It can make it by only add “-er” at the end of the word. But in Chinese， this effect cannot be achieved.

Some suggestions are given at the end of this paper. Firstly， as the Chinese language often omit the personal reference and the demonstrative reference， the adding of them is necessary when translating the Chinese report to English report. Secondly， sentences in Chinese version is long， the translator should cut the sentence short and then translate them. Lastly， the translator must be faithful to the original work. Literal translation is the first choice when translating the political text.

作者簡介：姚洋，1994年2月3日出生，女，汉族，籍贯河南省，现就读于首都师范大学外国语学院2018级MTI专业。硕士研究生，主要研究翻译学。