On Ying Ruocheng’ English Translation Of The Family From The Approach To Translation As Adaptation And Selection

The Family, representative work of Ba Jin, reflects the breakdown of feudal patriarchal system, the awakening of the young generation’s revolutionary spirit and their purchasing for ideal life. Thus, it produces far-reaching influence, not only at that time, but also on modern youth. Hu Gengshen has put forward "the approach to translation as adaptation and selection" in recent years. This approach borrows the fundamental principles of "adaptation" and "selection" from Darwinian Evolution Theory. Taking the common characteristics between these principles and the translation activities into account, Hu brings forth this approach from the angle of the translator’s "adaptation" and "selection". And with the publication of the book An Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection, this theory becomes more and more mature.This thesis attempts to make an analysis on Ying Ruocheng’ English translation of The Family within the framework of the approach to translation as adaptation and selection. The analysis is mainly from two aspects:one is the explaining function of this approach; the other one is outer influence on the translation works.In the process of translating, Ying consulted many actors, combining his own experience as actor and director. Revised translations reflect that the text should adapt to the concrete eco-environmet. For the above reason, the author believes that there could be strong explanation to Ying’s English translation of The Family in the light of the approach to translation as adaptation and selection. As a result, this paper tries to make an analysis of it. First of all, this paper focuses on the analysis of the translator’s adaptation and selection form translation methods, mainly on three dimensions—linguistic, cultural and communicative dimension. Linguistic dimension mainly lies in translation of lexicon, cohesion between dialogues and stylistics. Cultural dimension is reflected mainly in the translation of lexicon related to culture. And communicative dimension is represented mainly in the translation of address terms, the influence of audience response on translation, as well as the adaptation made on source sentence structures for communicative reason. All of the three dimensions should be taken into consideration. And at the same time, there can be different transformation orders in different text types. However, the transformation of three dimensions should be relative, dynamic and interwoven. Secondly, this paper tries to present the influence of adaptation to translational ecological environment on translation methods. In addition to that, some other factors are also mentioned. For example, the culture of the entity where the translator works for, the structure of audience and politics, all of which are important references for translation evaluation. Through research and analysis, the author believes that in the perspective of "the approach to translation as adaptation and selection", the translating process of The Family reflects adaptive selection and flexible transformation in different eco-environments. Moreover, Ying takes some outer influencing factors into consideration. This wide adaptive range achieves the acceptation of actors, director and audience. Thus, Ying’s English translation of The Family is a success. It takes the translator as the center, makes flexible and full adaptive selections, and it has high degree of holistic adaptation and selection.