Thematic Progression in Translation from English into Norwegian

Abstract

The focus of the present study is on thematic progression in texts translated from English into Norwegian. The objective is to analyze and compare thematic progression in an English source text and five different translations of the same English text. (See section 2 for a more detailed description of the material.) According to Danes, "text connexity is represented, inter alia, by thematic progression (TP)" (Danes 1974: 114). Thus the study of thematic progression is interesting because it is one of the factors that contribute to making a text a text, as it were. The study of thematic progression in translated texts adds another dimension to this, insofar as it also sheds light on the translating process. A translation is meant to convey the same meaning as the source text; it should have the same communicative effect. This does not necessarily entail a process of word for word translation, in fact it rarely does. But does the freedom to choose other wordings extend to choice of theme? After all, if the theme is seen as the starting point of the clause, "the peg on which the message is hung" (Halliday 1970:161 as quoted in Fries 1995: 318) and "that with which the clause is concerned" (Halliday 1994: 37), then the choice of a different theme will alter, if only subtly, the meaning/content of the message (Ventola 1995: 88). Such a change will, in turn, cause a change in the surrounding sentences, since it will alter the progression of the argument. Alternatively, is it possible that word order, thematic progression, and the content of the message are not as closely linked as one would expect? It is questions like these that the present study aims to answer.

The Realization of Thematic Progression in Online Ielts Writing Task 2 Samples in an English-Learning Website: A Case Study

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