句群内的衔接与连贯（8）

　　(9) 笼里养着两只母鸡，一只爱唱，另一只喜静。主人根据母鸡下蛋之后报唱的现象，以为所有的蛋都是那只唱鸡产的，因此很偏爱它，捉得蟑螂也专是喂给它吃。但日子一久，秘密揭穿了：原来那只唱鸡下蛋很少，而不叫的那只却一天一个，且蛋刚落地就一声不响地离开鸡窝，由那只唱鸡在蛋边大喊大叫。

　　There were two hens in a coop. One was fond of cackling while the other like to keep quiet. As it is customary for a hen to cackle after laying an egg, the chicken raiser accordingly credited the cackler with all the eggs that had been laid. As a result, he became so partial to his favourite bird that he fed her with every cockroach he caught. With the passing of time, however, it became known that the cackler had in fact laid very few eggs while the non-cackler kept laying one egg a day. Every time, as soon as the latter laid an egg, she quit the coop quietly, leaving the former standing by the newly-laid egg shouting and yelling her head off.

　　(谢逸《下蛋、唱鸡及其它》，张培基译)

　　原文第三句中使用了连接词“因此”，清楚地表明前两句和第三句之间的因果关系，说明主人偏心的原因，用“但”表现第四句与前部分句群内容的转折关系。此后的句子中连接词“而”表现转折关系，通过对比，分别说明两只鸡的不同表现，“且”则表示递进关系，说明喜静的母鸡的表现。这些连接词语，清楚表明了整个句群推进的逻辑次序。译文按照原文逻辑推进层次，用“As a result”、“However”和“While”表示类似的逻辑关系，并添加相应的表示时间关系的词汇标记“As”、“as soon as”等，更加突出了句群的连贯性。