ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the translation issues that can arise at the level of textual structure, in particular, aspects of textual coherence and cohesion. The different principles governing German and English word order often confront the translator with a choice: maintain the pragmatically or communicatively determined order of ideas, or maintain the syntax of the source text. A great many sentences in German are marked by an announcement and completion pattern, whether that means reading a finite form of ‘haben’ or ‘sein’ that points to a past participle or infinitive to come, a modal verb that points to an infinitive or a Funktionsverb that points to its complement at the end. A worthwhile way to explore these sorts of issues is, as so often, to read specifically for them: read looking for sentence structure, thinking first about information structure, then about other, more stylistic or communicative emphasis.
