Thematic progression in English-Chinese translation of argumentative classics: a quantitative study of Francis Bacon's 'Of Studies' and its 11 Chinese translations

摘要

By way of a quantitative study of the patterns of thematic progression of the argumentative essay 'Of Studies' and its 11 Chinese translations, we attempt to demonstrate the degree of relevance of these patterns to translation studies. Our study reveals that these patterns and their shifts in translation display certain regularity in their frequency and density, which in turn may shed light on many issues in the English-Chinese translation of argumentative classics, such as the constitution of the 'interlingua' and the degree of correspondence between the source text and the target text(s).