Context And Lirerary Translation

Great and fundamental changes have happened in the study of linguistics. One of these noticeable features for these changes is the transformation between one angle of linguistic studies to another one, namely from the theoretical study of linguistics to the study of language application. Under this tendency, many new borderline subjects are appearing, some of which are socialinguistics, applied linguistics, utterance linguistics , pragmatics, semantics, and the theory of speech acts and so on. These new borderline subjects will not only widen the scope of linguistics studies but also deepen the nature of various linguistic studies. The concept of "context" has gradually been given increasing attention by scholars.Context can be simply described as the situations or circumstances of language use. It plays an important part in language study, especially for language application. Whether using language properly should be judged by the consideration of contexts in different situations. It is hard to define the meaning of an utterance without consideration of the context in which it is used.In recent years, many linguists have already realized the importance of context and intensively discussed the functions of context. However, up to now the connection between context functions and literary translation has not been widely applied. With the social development and the communication around the world, translation cannot be only regarded as a transformation of languages in linguistic symbol or merely of information in communication. Context has a close tie with comprehension of meaning and language use, so to discuss the influence of context in literary translation is of great significance.The author traces back the researches on context both at home and abroad. Then to begin with the definition and the classification of context, the author makes a very specific study of the features and functions of context in language use. Through analyzing various literary translation examples, the author clearly reinforces these very functions of context influences on the translation's meaning understanding and defining. Substantiated by the fact that translation meaning would vary with different functions of context, this thesis comes to a conclusion that in literary translation, whether translation practice, translation criterion or translation criticism is depended on by the theory of context. Based on a close observation of context functions, the author tentatively intends to prove its importance in widening the scope of translation study and setting up a new angle in translation study and more attention and the studies on context in translation are drawn.