The Flow of Information in English and Persian Academic Texts

Abstract

—The present paper focused on the status of thematic progression patterns in academic texts between English and Persian languages. To this end, following McCabe (1999) and North (2005), the first three pages of the first chapter of 8 books in terms of Linguistics (4 in English, as source texts and 4 in Persian, as translated texts) were selected and analyzed regarding thematic progression patterns. The obtained results showed that there were significant differences between the languages in focus concerning how information are introduced in texts especially in case of linear and constant patterns. The main concluding remark taken from this study is that not only authors but also translators should be vigilant of such cohesive devices as thematic progression in creating more cohesive text since, as Hatim and Mason (1990) mentions, we know little about what patterns there are and how equivalence could be achieved between different languages. This is an aspect of texture which should be of crucial importance to the translator (p. 220).