Reframed narrativity in literary translation: an investigation of the explicitation of cohesive chains

Abstract Explicitation is a key concept in translation studies referring to turning what implicitly narrated source text into explicit narration target text; it has been widely studied from different aspects across language pairs and genres. However, while most previous investigate explicitation through few indicators of explicitness, which are specific logical links connectives, textual explicitness encompasses far beyond these. To date, little attention paid, especially literary translation, semantic explicitation, realized cohesive chains development. Since represent the development events characters throughout text, assumed more there them, tangible realizing its meaning within context. This research, therefore, sets out Chinese classic novel, Hong Lou Meng , two English translations, The Dream Red Mansions A Story Stone with an emphasis on how texts manifested as narratives respective contexts readers. It found trend terms numbers lexical items forming chains. also differences distribution types (identity similarity chains), distinctive patterns context each text. interpretation these stylistic features narrative reflects both typological translators’ choices.