Translation of Hypotaxis and Parataxis from the Pragmatic Perspective

Abstract

English is a hypotaxis-prominent language while Chinese is parataxis -prominent. English puts stress on hypotaxis for its integral structure and precise morphological changes while Chinese on parataxis for its clear meaning and accurate expressiveness. It is a tangible result of differences between the two languages in modes of thinking, philosophical tradition and profound cultural explanations of the differences. This paper will contribute to tentatively probe into the reasons why writers in English would rather adopt the paratactic structure than hypotactic one structure from the pragmatic perspective. The author thus recommends that the characteristics of hypotactic and paratactic structures in English and Chinese should be discussed from the pragmatic perspective, so as to improve the traditional translation techniques and contrastive study between the two languages.