ABSTRACT
We saw that, on the sentential level, this arrangement marks the text as informative rather than as an expression of excitement. Now, part of this sentential effect derives from the pronoun ‘It’, which explicitly links the second sentence to the first as conveying additional information about autumn. Such linking of one sentence to another is the most significant feature found on the discourse level. (Note that the word ‘discourse’ has multiple meanings both within linguistics and beyond; for a discussion, see Coupland and Jaworski 2001: 134-148. In this book, we are using ‘discourse’ in only the specific sense of a level of language organization beyond that of the sentence.)
13.2 The discourse level The textual variables considered on the discourse level are those that distinguish a cohesive and coherent textual flow from a random sequence of unrelated utterances. Strictly speaking, this level is concerned with intersentential relations (relations between sentences) and with relations between larger units, such as paragraphs, stanzas, chapters and so on. For our purposes, however, it is sometimes useful also to consider relations between parts of sentences on the discourse level (and particularly clauses), as if the parts were sentences in their own right. This is particularly important with respect to Arabic; as we have already seen (Section 12.2.1), Arabic sentences are often extremely long, and the lack of consistent punctuation in much modern Arabic writing (as well as its total lack in classical writing) also often makes it impossible to determine unambiguously where one sentence ends in Arabic and another begins. (For a very useful discussion of these and other issues relating to cohesion and translation, see Baker 2011: 190-239.)
Next, we shall consider some examples involving relations between parts of sentences rather than whole sentences. However, our main focus will be on intersentential issues, because these are what most clearly illustrate translation issues on the discourse level.
