A Study On Roberts’Translation Of Three Kingdoms

By adopting the method of combining documentary analysis and example analysis, this thesis is to study the translation artistry of Roberts’Three Kingdoms within the framework of Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory. This thesis holds that the adaptation in translation is a dynamic process in which translators genuinely take subjective factors and objectives factors into account so as to achieve the goal of effective translation and successful cultural transmission. And it is also a process in which translators’ subjective initiative and objective cultural differences are dialectically united.Currently, the translation of Roberts’Three Kingdoms has been widely accepted by translators at home and abroad. Based on Three Kingdoms translated by Roberts, concerning the influence of politics, society, culture, psychology and cognition, this thesis investigates how the translator consciously makes language choice based on different cultural background, social background and period background to achieve the goal of cultural transmission.This thesis consists of five parts. After briefly introducing Adaptation Theory and Three Kingdoms, the author reviews the researches on Three Kingdoms at home and abroad. Then the author analyzes Roberts’translation from the perspective of Adaptation Theory. Finally this thesis reaches a conclusion about the study, pointing out that the research on translation of Three Kingdoms and other Chinese classics is a formidable task as well as a long-term process in which systematic research is indispensable. The findings are as follows:Firstly, the artistry of Roberts’translation is the result of mutual action of contextual elements (such as physical world, social world and psychological world) and language structural elements (such as words, sentence patterns, text structure and context). When translating certain images contained profound characteristics of Chinese traditional culture, Roberts adopts various flexible and unfettered choice-making strategies. Secondly, in order to achieve the adaptation to target language readers’physical, social and mental world, Roberts consciously makes dynamic language choices without neglecting the target language readers’cultural differences, linguistic differences and social differences. These choices appear on the layers of lexis, sentence, semantics and style. Thirdly, due to translator’s deviation and cognitive difference, translator inevitably misunderstands certain images containing plentiful Chinese traditional culture. This phenomenon neatly illustrates:adaptation is the result that closely combines original’s context with translator’s and reader’s cultural background and their cognitive ways.