Metaphor Translation In Beloved From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

This thesis explores issues of metaphor translation in Beloved from the perspective of the Adaptation theory.Metaphor has always been playing an important role in literary works as it adds to the aesthetic value, helps to deepen the theme and conceptualize things. After the cursory review of the research on metaphor, metaphor translation and the introduction of Adaptation Theory, the author lays a theoretical framework guided by the adaptive approach. The framework shows the dynamic process of translating metaphor and manifests that when making translation choices, the translator mainly adapts to two contexts of the target readers—the linguistic and the extra-linguistic context. Then in the case study of Beloved, the author first explores issues related to metaphor translation such as the interpretation and the cultural context of metaphors in the novel, then the author goes on with the analysis of adaptation from 6 perspectives: the syntactic structure, semantic adjustment, textual motivation, physical condition, cultural context, and psychological motivation.From the research, the author of the thesis has found that in most cases the translator will strive to retain the original metaphor in the target text, but when deep culture connotation is embedded or collocational compatibility is difficult to achieve, the translator will choose to adapt to the linguistic and conceptual conventions of the target readers by reducing or giving up the image of the metaphor, reserving the meaning or statement only. Even when a concept exists in both source and target contexts, the translator can still make adaptation on its conceptual base to achieve a better effect of the metaphor.