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Cohesion, as a part of Systemic Functional Grammar, has been established and recognized for more than 30 years. In the 30 years much has been achieved both in its theoretical evolution and practical application. Theoretically, we have had a much deeper understanding of the theoretical concept and its coverage has also been extended continuously, from the original non-structural, cross-sentence (clause) semantic relations, structural cohesion and logical cohesion, to the cohesion of interpersonal meaning, and even cohesion between text and context, In terms of application, a great number of scholars (e.g., Huang Guowen,1988; Li Yunxing,2001; Zhang Delu & Liu Rushan,2003, etc.) have discussed and proved the great applicable value of cohesion theory in many fields, such as translation, language teaching, etc., based on contrastive studies concerning English and Chinese. Generally speaking, most scholars (e.g., Halliday & Hasan,1976; Hoey,1991; Hu Zhuanglin,1994; Thompson,1996, etc.) regard cohesion as a semantic concept, functioning to interweave linguistic elements in a text into a coherent whole. However, most previous studies in this field are confined at the level of ideational function, with only a small number of studies done from an interpersonal perspective. Moreover, most studies of interpersonal cohesion are based on English data while those based on Chinese data are very limited.On that account, the author tries, in this thesis, to explore the major differences in interpersonal cohesion between Chinese and English on the basis of a contrastive study in the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar. Cohesion, as a semantic unit, refers to a kind of textual meaning, which organizes not only ideational meaning but also interpersonal meaning in a text into a coherent whole. Interpersonal cohesion means the mechanism of semantic relations established between text elements both expressing interpersonal meanings and functioning as cohesive devices. Interpersonal cohesion, as a relatively new term in this field, may mainly be realized at four levels of mood, modality, lexis and intonation grammatically, lexically, and phonetically.With data drawn from two well-known literature works, Wei Ch’eng (Qian Zhongshu) and Moment In Peking (Lin Yutang), and the former’s English translation, Fortress Besieged, the current contrastive study investigates interpersonal cohesive devices both in Chinese and English at four levels:mood (subject chain, adjacency pair, parallelism of mood, and tense cohesion), modality (repetition and contrast of modality), lexis (attitudinal lexis) and intonation (tone system). On the basis of contrastive analysis, this study aims to achieve two goals:first, to reveal the similarities and differences in interpersonal cohesion between Chinese and English and explore the underlying causes; second, to explore what influences such differences may impose on C-E translation and what we may do to deal with problems we may encounter in rendering Chinese texts into English ones.Based on the contrastive analyses in this study, we may conclude that all interpersonal cohesive devices at the levels of mood, modality, lexis and intonation have a contributing role in the coherence of texts both in Chinese and English and those devices often work in collaboration to achieve coherence. Though interpersonal cohesive devices share great similarities in English and Chinese, the two languages show some differences in employing such devices, which often cause some difficulties in C-E translation. To solve them, we need have a profound understanding to the similarities and differences in interpersonal cohesion between the two languages, thus we may render them in a proper way.This paper is organized into five sections.In the section of introduction, the background of this study is defined, research purposes outlined, and organization of thesis described.In the first chapter, methods of this study are described, and theoretical framework developed. Meanwhile, some information is presented about the data sampled for this empirical analysis.The second chapter is mainly devoted to theoretical review, where the theoretical evolution of cohesion is described, especially that of interpersonal cohesion, and where a summary of major achievements made by scholars and linguists (both at home and abroad) in the contrastive analysis of cohesive devices between Chinese and English is provided. Moreover, interpersonal cohesion will be defined within the framework of Systemic Functional Grammar, on the basis of previous theoretical achievements made by linguists and scholars. At the same time, the scope of research will be defined in the chapter.The third chapter is dedicated to the contrastive analysis of interpersonal cohesive devices in Chinese and English mainly at the four levels:mood, modality, lexis, and intonation, aiming to investigate similarities and differences in interpersonal cohesion between the two languages and reveal the underlying causes. In view of problems in C-E translation concerning differences in interpersonal cohesion between the two languages, some tentative suggestions are also provided here.The last section is the concluding part, in which some conclusions are drawn on the basis of contrastive analysis made in the previous chapter, and meanwhile, some proposals are also put forward to further research into interpersonal cohesion.
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