On The English Translating Of Modern Chinese Adverbs From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

As an important word class, adverb is widely and frequently used both inChinese and English; however, there are many differences between modern Chineseadverbs and English adverbs. Therefore, it is worth doing research in adverbtranslation.Pragmatics is a relatively new discipline which focuses on language in use. Inrecent years, more and more theorists has attempted to approach translation withtheories of pragmatics, nevertheless, most of them only address pragmaticimplications in certain aspects. As a coherent theoretical framework about languageuse, Adaptation Theory put forward by Jef. Verschueren has also been applied totranslation studies. Thus, taking all the adverbs appearing in Zhang Peiji’s SelectedModern Chinese Prose Writings as the research materials, this thesis finds out thetranslation strategies used by Zhang Peiji to translate adverbs and the regularities ofusing them. In addition, this study tentatively probes into the English translating ofmodern Chinese adverbs from the perspective of Adaptation Theory.Methodologically speaking, this study is both theory-driven and data-driven.Qualitative and quantitative analyses as well as comparative and contrastive analysesare used to analyze the data. Based on the analysis of the data and Adaptation Theory,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1) Zhang Peiji uses amplification, omission, conversion, negation and literaltranslation to translate adverbs; there are259adverbs in Selected Modern ChineseProse Writings, but the total frequency is3351; the percentage of omission is thehighest (54.73%) and amplification is the lowest (0.03%).(2) Only the regularities of using four translation strategies are summarized andthey are the regularities of using omission, amplification, negation and literaltranslation. Due to the complexity of using conversion, no clear regularities arefound out. However, it founds out that adverbs can be converted into conjunctions,verbs, adjectives and clauses.The regularities of using omission are:①when an adverb has no meanings, theadverb can be omitted;②when an adverb functions as a conjunction and thepreceding conjunction which appears together with the adverb indicates conditions,the adverb can be omitted;③when an adverb appears repeatedly in one sentence,usually the second one can be omitted;④when there is one expression in the targetlanguage which can encompass the meanings of the adverb and the elements which are modified by the adverb, the adverb can be omitted;⑤when an adverb isexpressed in other ways in the target language, the adverb can be omitted.The regularity of using amplification is that amplification can be used when thedegree or mood indicated by an adverb is to be translated and strengthened.The regularities of using negation are:①negation can be used when an adverbindicates the meaning of negation;②negation can be used when there is the “非（得）……不……” structure in the source sentence;③negation often occurstogether with conversion of parts of speech.The regularity of using literal translation is that adverbs can be literallytranslated if there are corresponding expressions in the target language to the originaladverbs.(3) Based on Adaptation Theory, adverb translation can be explained from thefour angles: contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability,and dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation process.The translation strategies and their regularities are hoped to be useful fortranslation practice. And this study is hoped to provide adverb translation with a newpragmatic perspective.