On C-E Prose Translation From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Strictly speaking, prose shares the same status with the other three literary genres, viz. poetry, fiction and drama, and usually it is concise and succinct. China boasts a long history of prose, and prose has undergone a development by leaps and bounds ever since the May Fourth Movement in 1919, in which period there emerged a wealth of excellent prose writers. Nonetheless, it is regrettable to notice the fact that most of the Chinese literary works rendered into foreign languages are poetry, fiction and drama, excluding prose. And researches upon C-E prose translation are rare. In view of this severe fact, the author attempts to analyze the C-E prose translation with the employment of the Adaptation Theory and provide the study on C-E prose translation with a fresh view.The Adaptation Theory was proposed by Belgium linguist Jef. Verschueren. According to this theory, the process of language-using is that of choice-making, and three properties of language, namely, variability, negotiability and adaptability, make sure that language users can make various appropriate choices in the course of language-using. Among the three properties, adaptability is the key, which consists of contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation processes. The Adaptation Theory casts several insights upon the C-E prose translation study. Firstly, the process of C-E prose translating is that of continual choice-making by the translator; secondly, according to this theory, the translator has to make adaptation to both the intra- and extra-linguistic elements; last but not least, on the macro level, this theory explains some translation phenomena in C-E prose translation, such as the reason and necessity of retranslation. For the sake of demonstrating the argument better, a qualitative analysis is conducted on Zhang Peiji's Selected Modern Chinese Essays under the guidance of the Adaptation Theory. In the process of translating modern Chinese essays, Prof. Zhang Peiji dynamically and flexibly employs different but pertinent translation methods to score the adaptation to both the intra-linguistic aspects (phonology, lexicon, sentence, discourse and style) and the extra-linguistic aspects (mental world, social world and physical world). In doing so, Zhang Peiji transforms source texts'contents and ideas faithfully and smoothly, adapts to and meets target texts readers'reading anticipation. The author of this thesis summarizes these translation methods, intending to shed some light upon C-E prose translation practice.It is hoped that the present thesis is of help to the C-E prose translation both in theory and practice.