Translator's Adaptation And Selection: Translation Process Research For China's Global Communication

To synchronize China's ongoing reform and opening-up to the outside world and the accelerating development of the Chinese economy, China is striding into the international arena for its significant achievements and considerable influence. A variety of resources call for day-to-day translation from Chinese into foreign languages. This rare opportunity for China's global communication endows the translators with a glorious and arduous mission for boosting China's global image. In China's global communication, the translator's task is to turn Chinese versions into foreign languages in an excellent way to reflect China's standpoints by means of such media as books, periodicals, newspapers, broadcasting, television, and network etc. and various international conferences. Translation for China's global communication is to a large extent a specific embodiment of a nation's level of foreign exchanges and humanities environmental construction. This dissertation, based on the Translation as Adaptation and Selection as its theory framework, expounds in detail the following perspectives: what translational eco-environment for China's global communication the translator should adapt, how to adapt it, the respective result of the translator's adaptation and its maladaptation, what the translator having adapted translational eco-environment for China's global communication should select and how to select it. This study strives to get a breakthrough in the three aspects. Firstly, in the context of today's cultural globalization, the essence of translation forChina' global communication is "that translation is a purposeful activity"——not only to transmit Chinese culture to the outside world but also push forward the social progress for mankind civilization development. This is because the races and cultures of the world can never coexist, melt and develop without translation with the connecting role of multi-cultures' contact and shock. The translation process of China's global communication is that of the translator-centered adaptation to translational eco-environment like cultural globalization and optimal selection of translation method to produce translation versions with the highest degree of holistic adaptation and selection. Secondly, Professor Hu Gengshen believes that Adaptation and Selection is more or less always the translator's subconscious mental activity, which is done by its instinct. However, the present study argues that cultural globalization urges the translator to take a fresh look at its sense of consciousness. Only by improving its degree of consciousness can the translator realize its multi-dimensional adaptation to specific translational eco-environment to produce the translation versions with the highest degree of holistic adaptation and selection. The translator's best adaptation and optimal selection to achieve "doing things with translations" of translation for China's global communication demands the translator to think globally and consistently strengthen his/her subjectivity consciousness, multicultural consciousness, translational function and skopos consciousness, skill consciousness in translation and quality consciousness etc. Thirdly, the present study applies the concept in a broad sense of China's global communication including transmitting means such as broadcasting, television, newspapers, periodicals, and network to translation process study of China's global communication. In case study, this dissertation highlights the key points by abandoning deliberately some forms, instead, focusing its attention on the forms of special coverage, large special report, and news report etc. which are involved in information translation for China's global communication. In the analysis of data, the study tries to speak with evidence by inspecting word for word. Based on the analysis of data and the subject nature of translation for China's global communication itself, the present study has tentatively generalized ten features of China's global communication translation, namely, adaptability, selectivity, sociality, culture, creativity, historicity, preciseness and perspicuity, consistency, intentionality and interactivity.This paper gives top priority to research originality regarding these aspects as follows: First, translation for China's global communication is an emerging study field. To probe into its nature, especially into its translation process is a manifestation of innovation. Second, the present study in the context of cultural globalization, focuses on the translation process of China's global communication, and puts forward the essence that translation is a purposeful activity. Third, in the light of data and literature held by the author, there is no study on translation for China's global communication which is based on the theory of Translation as Adaptation and Selection and fully highlights the translator's domination. Fourth, the cognitive psychology factor i.e. the level of consciousness interrelated with the translator's adaptation and selection is brought into the present study. Last but not least, the author makes a tentative summary of the features of translation for China's global communication to provide a theoretical guide for translation practice. All in all, this dissertation is an interdisciplinary approach to and tentative research on translation for China's global communication.This dissertation falls into six chapters.Chapter 1. IntroductionIn this chapter, the author introduces the present study's topic selection background, theoretical structure, main problems and purposes, originalities, features and methods to offer an overview of the dissertation.Chapter 2. A literature overview of the translation for China's global communicationThis chapter, a general overview and clear definition of the terms interrelated with China's global communication, lays a foundation for singling out the meaning, nature, study object of translation for China's global communication and the differences between translation for China's global communication and other types of text translation such as literary translation. And then the purpose, the effect evaluation, and the transmission way of translation for China's global communication and the research lag phenomenon on it are discussed in detail to highlight the significance of research on translation for China's global communication. Chapter 3. The translation for China's global communication and cultural globalizationWith the emerging of globalization, globalization study is looming as a distinguished subject. Cultural globalization study is an important theory study model of globalization. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the overseas scholars began to study globalization in the sight of culture or civilization,and thus a new theoretical space——cultural globalization took shape.Among them are Roland Roberson, Immanuel Wallerstein, Francis Fukuyama, Samuel P. Huntington, and John Tomlinson who have formed their own academic characteristics. In China, according to statistics between 1999 and 2006 from Chinese periodical network by entering the keyword "cultural globalization", more than a hundred relevant papers can be retrieved. However, the definition and people's understanding of globalization and cultural globalization are divided. It is not surprising that the anti-cultural globalization appears. In view of the above reasons, this chapter first clearly defines the connotation and essence of cultural globalization. Then it explicitly proposes that, in the context of cultural globalization, the essence of translation for China's global communication is "that translation is a purposeful activity". The underlying principle of " distinctions between domestic and foreign readers" and "distinctions between foreign readers" should be observed throughout the translation process of China's global communication. The translation for China's global communication, also a purposeful activity, is a process of adaptation and selection with translator-centeredness and translator's domination.Chapter4. China's global communication translation process: translator's adaptation and selectionThis chapter, the core of the present study, will first make some brief comments on the discourse on "adaptation" and " selection" from the translation field at all times and in all countries and the linguistic theory, the pragmatic theory, the relevance theory of translation, the approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection which are related to the present study. And in view of that, the author elaborates the explicable and guiding role to the translation for China's global communication of Translation as Adaptation and Selection which is therefore established as the rationale of the present study.The author will then by means of the detailed and actual data, study on such problems as what and how the translator should adapt and select in the translation process of China's global communication, the interrelationship between the translator's adaptation and the translator's selection and so on so forth. From the perspective of Translation as Adaptation and Selection, the author surveys and analyses the mistranslation in translation for China's global communication. All this aims to highlight the indispensability that the translation process of China' global communication is the process of the translator's adaptation and selection.Lastly, this chapter will examine the cognitive psychological factor, i.e. the level of awareness involved in the process of translator's adaptation and selection. The function and purpose of consciousness is to enable people to select and better adapt to the environment. The consciousness peculiar to humans serves as the reactive and controlling function to interpret, control and transform the objective world, which is active and positive not passive, simple and superficial. Human's consciousness can penetrate into the inner part of the objective things and throw light upon their essence and rule to guide its practical activity. Professor Hu Gengshen believes that Adaptation and Selection is more or less always the translator's subconscious mental activity, which is done by its instinct. However, the present study argues that cultural globalization urges the translator to take a fresh look at its sense of consciousness. Only by improving its degree of consciousness can the translator realize its multi-dimensional adaptation to specific translational eco-environment to produce the translation versions with the highest degree of holistic adaptation and selection. Therefore, this chapter probes into the impact of the translator's level of awareness in the translation process of China' global communication on the translator's adaptation and selection.Chapter 5. The main features of translation for China's global communicationBased on the theoretical deduction, data analysis in the previous chapters and the subject nature of translation for China's global communication itself, the ten features of China's global communication translation are tentatively generalized in this chapter: adaptability, selectivity, sociality, culture, creativity, historicity, preciseness and perspicuity, consistency, intentionality and interactivity.Chapter 6. Concluding remarksIn this chapter, the author wraps up the gist of the present study, including its limitations and puts forward the suggestions for future research.