On Translation Of Chinese Neologism From The-erspective Of Adaptation Theory

Language is one of the basic instruments for human communication andvocabulary is the most active element in language. Neologism is a kind of vocabularythat reflects new things, concepts, ideas, experience, problems and so on. Since thereform and opening up to the outside world, a great number of Chinese neologismshave emerged into our daily-life at an unprecedented speed and have been translatedinto English. Although we have made some achievements in the study of Chineseneologism translation, there are still a lot of problems which existed in thosetranslation versions such as mechanical literal translation, random translation,redundant translation, cultural mistranslation, loss of cultural meaning and the like. Sofar, most of the theses just take many examples and summarize translation strategies,however, theoretical study on the translation of Chinese neologism into Englishappears to be lagging behind. There are few theses which apply the AdaptationTheory into translation of Chinese neologism. So, the author tries to adopt theAdaptation Theory in the study of Chinese neologism translation.Under the Adaptation Theory, translation is also a dynamic process of thetranslator gradually making choices, with the purpose of making communicationsuccessfully carried out. In the process of translation, to make communicationsuccessful, the translator has to take proper translation strategies and methodsaccording to a series of factors, such as translation purposes, cultural differences,different habits of expression, the target readers’ cognitive environment and so on.In this thesis, we collected the typical Chinese neologisms and their translationswhich have appeared in the past ten years. We have adopted the methods ofcomparison and analysis, summarization, synthesis and classification to analyze thetranslation of Chinese neologisms. And it is hoped that the Adaptation Theory for Chinese neologism translation proposed in this research could provide a new theoreticperspective for guiding further similar translation practice.The thesis begins with the general introduction of Chinese neologisms, coveringsuch matters as definition, classification, formation and features of Chineseneologisms. It also covers the present research achievements on neologisms and itstranslation, as well as the problems existed in the translation of Chinese neologisms.Then, the thesis probes into the theoretical basis----the Adaptation Theory, andexplores the relationship between the Adaptation Theory and the translation ofChinese neologisms. During the process of Chinese neologism translation, thetranslator is fully entitled to adopt proper translation strategies (foreignization anddomestication) and methods (such as transliteration, literal translation, free translation,back translation, literal translation with interpretation, naturalization, as well asanalogy) and dynamically adapt to a series of factors, such as translation purposes,cultural differences, different habits of expression, the target readers’ cognitiveenvironment and so on.