The topic-chain is a typical characteristic used to distinguish Chinese discourse from other languages, such as
English. By studying how to make use of the topic-chain, one learns how to decipher English into natural and idiomatic Chinese
translation. The idea of using topic-chains to explore English-Chinese (E-C) textual translation is relatively new to translation
studies. As such, this paper provides a detailed account of cross-linguistic differences between English and Chinese, with regard
to the topic-chain, as well as the differences between the topic-chain model and the approach of thematic progression theory. This
study, based on contrastive analysis, constructs a model consisting of specific procedures that are simple and easy to use,
thereby making English-Chinese textual translation a more manageable process. Use of topic-chain strategies will promote the
efficiency and quality of E-C translation, and allow for Chinese translated text to be more idiomatic. This paper provides an
overview of effective textual translation strategies that are useful both for translators and the field of translation studies as
a whole. It addresses how to teach translation effectively to students, providing practical theory and practice for pedagogical
instruction. Meanwhile, an experiment conducted provides the evidence that topic-chain for pedagogical instruction is
significantly valid. The pedagogical design of these strategies emphasizes the training of students’ textual awareness and targets
language-sensitive awareness. It is assumed that didactics can help students gain bilingual competence and strengthen their core
transfer competence. This study, therefore, is significant not only in exploring the benefits and uses of textual translation
studies, but has practical value when applied directly to translation learning and teaching.
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2021. Investigating the Use of Translation Continuation Tasks in Commercial Translation Teaching: A Study on Translating User Manuals. Chinese Journal of Applied Linguistics 44:3 ► pp. 366 ff.
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