What it is
A coherence change alters the logical arrangement of information above the level of the sentence. Paragraphs are reordered, merged or split; the steps of an argument are resequenced; headings, numbering or a summary are introduced to make the structure visible. The propositions are the ones the source contained, and the wording of each may be close to literal. What moves is the order in which the reader meets them and the shape the text presents as a whole.
Chesterman lists it as Pr6 and locates it at the ideational level, the level at which a text organizes what it is about. It is the one strategy in the pragmatic group whose effect is invisible in any single sentence pair. Blum-Kulka supplies the background, having studied shifts of cohesion and of coherence together and shown that translation regularly redistributes both.
Two boundaries define the category. Cohesion change, Chesterman's G8, concerns the surface signals that link parts of a text: pronouns, connectives, ellipsis, repetition. A text can be resequenced without a single cohesive device being altered, and every device can be exchanged while the argument runs in exactly the order it ran before. Transediting is the other boundary and the more important one in practice. A coherence change moves material that the source already contains; transediting rewrites it, condenses it and repairs it. As soon as sentences are being composed rather than relocated, the operation has left Pr6.
When it applies
- Source and target genres place the conclusion at different points, as legal and academic conventions do.
- The source presents in one continuous block what the target genre expects as numbered or headed sections, and the brief calls for a usable text.
- Information relevant to one decision is scattered across a document and the target readership reads for that decision.
- The source order follows a chronology or a procedure that the target reader does not share, so following it would obscure rather than convey the argument.
Examples
FR>EN
- Source: Attendu que le contrat a été résilié le 3 mars ; que le préavis n'a pas été respecté ; qu'il y a lieu de faire droit à la demande.
- Target: The claim succeeds. The contract was terminated on 3 March and the notice period was not observed.
- Comment: The French chain of recitals builds towards its conclusion; the English states the holding and then its grounds. Nothing is added or dropped. The reader meets the outcome first, which changes the argument's arrangement and not its content.
DE>EN
- Source: Der Antrag ist abzulehnen. Der Antragsteller hat die Frist versäumt; Wiedereinsetzungsgründe liegen nicht vor.
- Target: The applicant missed the deadline and there are no grounds for restoration of the position. The application must therefore be refused.
- Comment: The same operation in the other direction, premises before conclusion. Note the connective that appears in the target: reordering the steps of an argument almost always drags a cohesion change along with it, and the two labels describe different aspects of one edit.
TR>EN
- Source: A registry decision written as one unbroken paragraph covering the facts, the statutory basis and the ruling.
- Target: The same material under three headings, in the same order, with the statutory citations kept in place.
- Comment: Adding structure is a coherence change even where nothing moves, because the text now asserts a division it did not assert before. In a certified rendering the headings would have to be marked as supplied by the translator rather than presented as part of the document.
Watch out for
Coherence change is the strategy most likely to be applied out of helpfulness. A document is hard to follow, the translator improves the path through it, and the target reader receives an organization no one authorized.
- In binding text the arrangement carries force. Paragraph numbers, recital order, the sequence of operative provisions and cross-references to them are part of what the document says, and cannot be rearranged.
- Reordering can create implications. Placing a conclusion first asserts that the material after it is subordinate, which the source may not have claimed.
- Where the source structure is genuinely defective, the answer is a query or a transediting mandate, not a silent reorganization.
References
- Chesterman, A. (1997). Memes of Translation: The Spread of Ideas in Translation Theory. Benjamins Translation Library 22. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, Ch. 4. Revised edition (2016), Benjamins Translation Library 123, Ch. 4.
- Blum-Kulka, S. (1986). "Shifts of Cohesion and Coherence in Translation." In J. House & S. Blum-Kulka (eds), Interlingual and Intercultural Communication. Tübingen: Gunter Narr, pp. 17–35.
- Stetting, K. (1989). "Transediting: A New Term for Coping with the Grey Area between Editing and Translating." In G. Caie et al. (eds), Proceedings from the Fourth Nordic Conference for English Studies. Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen, pp. 371–382.