Coherence in Translation: from Reader’s Cognition- With Ulysses as Case Study

Leech and Short suggested that a progressive tendency in fiction is to dispense logical connections between sentences, and to rely on inferred connections, or simply juxtaposition (Leech & Short, 1981). Coincidentally, translators tend to make implicit coherence relations explicit for reader’s easy perception. The two opposite trends provide a perspective on the study of the translation of modern literary works. The question how the tendency of making everything explicit would affect reader’s cognition would be of particular value and interest. This paper aims to study the coherence in the translation of Ulysses from the view of reader’s cognition. The method used is to examine the two existing translations of Ulysses and suggest for improvements.