A Study Of The Translator’s Subjectivity In Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out Under Adaptation Theory

Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out (LDWMO for short) is one of representative works of Mo Yan. It is also the latest translation work of Mr. Howard Goldblatt for Mo Yan. This English version was reprinted in a few years in the world, which has been the major concern of scholars at home and abroad. Literary translation is not just simple language conversion. It is the complex cultural exchanges. At present, scholars have conducted research on the English version from stylistic, hermeneutics, skopos theory perspectives. Previous studies and social repercussions prove that the English version of Shengsi pilao is a great work.In pragmatic research, Verschueren’s Adaptation theory has been put forward by scholars at home and broad. Adaptation Theory emphasizes the process of using language is the process of making choices of language. In this process, dynamics of adaptability is jointly realized by "contextual correlates of adaptability and structural objects of adaptability"(Verschueren,2005:65). And translation is just a language choices-making process. To achieve the final effects of dynamic translation, the translator must actively play his initiative and creativity in the process of language choices. Translator’s subjectivity is always working the whole process of translation and influences the final effects of translation. The exertion of translator’s subjectivity runs through the whole process of translation. From the perspective of pragmatics, based on adaptation theory, the thesis discusses the translator’s subjectivity on the English version of LDWMO. The thesis hopes to show the translator’s subjectivity and its influence on translation effect through detailed analyses.Translator’s subjectivity is mainly embodied by four aspects:the specific process of translation, the treatment on author’s intention and readers’ requirement, the balance between the original work and translation, and adaptation on translation style. On the basis of Adaptation Theory as framework, the thesis conducts a detailed analysis the exertion of translator’s subjectivity in LDWMO, from two aspects of choices of language and dynamics adaptation. That is to say, the thesis analyzes the processes of making choices of language at different linguistic levels, and the processes of making choices by using translation techniques; and, through dynamic choices in language use, in the process of coordinating the cultural context, as well as the style on original text and translation, the translator achieves effects of dynamics adaptation.The thesis finds out that at the phonetic level, the translation not only keeps the sound beauty of Chinese’ballads, but also forms unique poetic rhyme style in English; at the lexical level, the translator skillfully uses the "one word with various translations" and italic onomatopoeia to meet the specific needs of different contexts in translation; at syntactic level, in the translation and the original text, the translator tries his best to keep the consistency in syntactical structure and rhetoric; what’s more, when translating discourse, the translator makes the translation achieve the cohesion and coherence by coordinating the subject, tense, personal pronoun, and logic. Not only that, to meet the different linguistic and cultural context on different translation purposes, the translator skillfully and appropriately uses the amplification, omission, simplification and annotation to realize the dynamic adaptation on language and cultural dimensions. Under the premise of fully playing Goldblatt’s translator’s subjectivity, LDWMO achieves the adaptation in the original content and style at different linguistic levels by making appropriate translation techniques; moreover, in the translation process, Goldblatt comprehensively considers and coordinates the original work, social and cultural environment of target language, and readers’requirement, which make the translation achieve dynamic adaptation effects on language style, social and cultural environment and Anglo-American readers’requirement. The thesis further finds that in inter-culture communication, the translator, as the coordinator of the source language and target language, builds up a bridge for cultural transmission. To play a role of a good cultural coordinator, the translator must fully understand the source language and target language cultures, and fully plays his initiative and creativity in translation to make the source language culture be understood and accepted by target language readers as much as possible. Under the preconditions of fully playing translator’s subjectivity, great translation should reflect the original content, author’s intention, translator’s personality and satisfy the psychological needs of target language readers in the inter-cultural communication. However, the exertion of translator’s subjectivity is also constrained by some specific objective language factors, culture factors, context factors, and translator’s own factors. How to treat and deal with these constraints is also an important basis for judging the translator’s subjectivity.