Domestication And Foreignization In The Translation Of Fortress Besieged From A Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

In translation, domestication refers to the translation strategy in which a transparent, fluent style is adopted in order to minimize the strangeness of the source text for target language readers. It is oriented to the target language. Foreignization means to keep the foreigness of the original to the greatest extent in the translated version. There has been a long-standing controversy over the two strategies in China's translation field. Most of the previous discussions focus on the linguistic aspect or specific skills. There has long been a lack of comprehensive theoretical perspective in the analysis of the translation quality.Jef Verschueren proposed Adaptation Theory in his book Understanding Pragmatics in 1999 which provides a comprehensive perspective on pragmatics. It also offers guidance for translation study.Fortress Besieged, the English version of Weicheng, has achieved great success, yet it also encounters criticism. This thesis uses the theory of adaptation to analyse the English version of Fortress Besieged. The writer analyses the application of domestication and foreignization in Fortress Besieged from the two angles of textual adaptation and contextual adaptation, and concludes that the two translation strategies are not contradictory but complementary to each other. To adapt to the translators' translation purpose and the target readers'cognitive ability, both strategies should be applied, but the dominant one should be foreignization. The writer hopes that this thesis will be a theoretical foundation for the use of domestication and foreignization, and serve as an example for the application of Adapation Theory in the field of literary translation.