A Contrastive Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of A Tale Of Two Cities From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptation And Selection

As the world-renowned representative of British realist writer Charles Dickens,A Tale of Two Cities has received Chinese readers’ warm welcome since its first Chinese version emerged in 1920s.So far,the number of its Chinese versions is reaching to almost 100 pieces,several of which even were reprinted or republished by different publishing houses.Amid these versions,Luo Jinan’s and Song Zhaolin’s versions stand out for their significant effect and unique charm.Luo Jinan translated this novel in 1947 for the first time,and then retranslated it in 1955.Luo Jinan’s retranslated version was the one that printed more times before 1978.After almost 40 years,Song Zhaolin’s version was published in 1994,which is widely favored by the modern Chinese readers and scholars.Thus,this thesis chooses Luo Jinan’s retranslated version(1983)and Song Zhaolin’s reprinted version(2012)as the case study.In China,the research on Chinese versions of A Tale of Two Cities always remains as a hot topic.However,these researches are still mainly conducted from the perspectives of socio-culture,translational norms,stylistic formal marker and retranslation,this thesis is the only one that attempts to make the contrastive study of A Tale of Two Cities from the perspective of the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection.The approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection,proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen,discusses translation as "a selection activity of the translator’s adaptation to fit the translational eco-environment".The translational eco-environment concludes the worlds manifested by the source text and the source/target languages,the linguistic,communicative,cultural and social aspects of translating,as well as the author,the client and the readers.The approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection divides translation process into two phases,namely,how the translational eco-environment tries to ’select’ the translator and how the translator who has adapted to the translational eco-environment selects the final target text,which explores a new angle for the study of translation process.In the light of Professor Hu’s definition of the translating process,this thesis tries to make a detailed analysis of two Chinese translators’ selective adaptations and adaptive selections on the basis of the two Chinese versions of A Tale of Two Cities.This thesis includes five parts in all.The First Chapter is a brief introduction of this thesis,containing the research background,the significance of the thesis,the research questions and the thesis structure.The Second Chapter is a comprehensive literature review,which can be subclassified into two parts:the overview of Professor Hu’s Translation as Adaptation and Selection and the review of the translations of A Tale of Two Cities and previous studies on these translations.The Third Chapter is the theoretical framework,which also falls into two parts:the development of Professor Hu’s the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection and a detailed explanation of Professor Hu’s theory.The Fourth Chapter is taken as the principal part which conducts the contrastive study on Luo Jinan’s and Song Zhaolin’s selective adaptations to the translational eco-environment and their adaptive selections under the theoretical guidance of the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection.It’s made up of two parts,including translators’ selective adaptations in pre-translating phase from the aspects of competence and translational eco-environment,and translators’ adaptive selections in translating phase from the angle of linguistic,cultural and communicative dimensions.The Fifth Chapter makes a conclusion of the whole thesis,which respectively summarizes the major translation methods adopted by two Chinese translators and the major research findings as well as the limitations of this thesis.The study reveals that both Luo Jinan’s and Song Zhaolin’s versions reflect the characteristics of their times,and they are all the final productions of translators’ adaptations to translational eco-environments.It is two translators’ selective adaptations to the translational eco-environments(mainly includes the source text,the dominant ideology,the target language and the target readers)that determine the two versions survive well in different times.And two translators make their respective selections in the process of translating A Tale of Two Cities.On linguistic dimension,Luo Jinan chose the lexical words and sentence structures in his times,which adapted to the then ideology and target readers in 1950s.But the words and sentences that he chose are difficult to meet the demands of the modern Chinese readers with the change of the Chinese language and target readers’ demands and etc.thus,in 1990s,Song Zhaolin selected those words and sentences that more accessible to the target readers,which enhances his version’s possibility of survival and competitiveness.On cultural dimension,influenced by the literature ideological trend of serving workers-peasants-soldiers,Luo Jinan adopted the method of transliteration plus annotation and also substituted some cultural expressions by Chinese expressions for the sake of readers’accessibility and readability while dealing with foreign cultures.By contrast,Song Zhaolin mainly employed the method of transliteration plus annotation to retain the exotic flavor of the source text so as to meet readers’ demands for foreign cultures.On communicative dimension,under the specific social environment,Luo Jinan’s version well conveys the writer’s communicative intensions;however,Song Zhaolin’s version displays the communicative intentions for the modern readers as well.