A Study Of Sideny Shapiro’s Translation Of Shui Hu Zhuan From The Perspective Of Contextual Correlates Of Adaptability

Translation, as a kind of language use, falls into the scope of pragmatics in the broad sense. Sideny Shapiro’s translation of Shui Hu Zhuan enjoys popularity among translation researchers by virtue of its loyalty to the original text and its reproduction of the original style. Adaptation Theory is one of the most popular pragmatic theories. Under the guidance of Adaptation Theory, the thesis is a study of some translation phenomena in Sideny Shapiro’s version Outlaws of the Marsh. The study focuses on how Shapiro’s translation is adapted to each communicative contextual correlate and how his translation is adapted to each linguistic contextual correlate.Adaptation Theory was first put forward by the Belgian linguist Jef. Verschueren in1999. It comprehends and interprets pragmatics from a new perspective. Its fundamental idea is that using language must consist of the continuous making of linguistic choices, consciously or unconsciously. Language users need to make adaptations to both communicative contextual correlates and linguistic contextual correlates. Communicative contextual correlates include language users’ mental world, social world and physical world. Linguistic contextual correlates include contextual cohesion, intertextuality and sequencing. The channel through which adaptations are made is language structure. The process of adaptation and choice making is dynamic.The thesis consists of five parts. In Introduction, the research background, research purpose, research questions and research significance are analyzed. There are two research questions, namely, how Shapiro’s translation is adapted to each communicative contextual correlate and how Shapiro’s translation is adapted to each linguistic contextual correlate. Chapter One is the part of literature review. Previous translation studies on Shui Hu Zhuan are analyzed and generalized. Limitations of previous studies and necessity of this study are analyzed. The thesis puts translation study into the scope of pragmatics in the broad sense. Under the guidance of Adaptation Theory, some translation phenomena in Outlaws of the Marsh are explained and some enlightenments about the translation process are gained. Chapter Two introduces the essentials of Adaptation Theory and its feasibility in translation studies. Based on the fundamental ideas of Adaptation Theory, translation is a continuous process of adaptation and choice making on the part of the translator. In both interpreting the ST and producing the TT, the translator needs to make adaptations to all the involved language users’mental world, social world and physical world and to each linguistic contextual correlate. Chapter Three is a detailed study of how Shapiro’s translation is adapted to each communicative contextual correlate and to each linguistic contextual correlate. The adaptations to communicative contextual correlates include those to the language users’ mental world, social world and physical world. In translation studies, the adaptation to language users’ mental world refers to that to their purposes and motivation. The translation of religion-related expressions and phatic communion are taken as examples to illustrate the influence of purposes on translation. The adaptation to language users’social world refers to that to the social rules that impose an influence on language use. The translation of euphemisms and terms of respect and modesty are taken as examples. As to the adaptation to language users’ physical world, the translation of temporal reference and spatial reference are taken as examples. The adaptations to linguistic contextual correlates are manifested in three aspects, namely, adaptations to different cohesive devices between Chinese and English, to the intertextuality phenomena in the ST and in the TT and to the different sequencing rules in Chinese and English. The final part—Conclusion—gives a systematic answer to the research questions. The thesis focuses on the first angle of Adaptation Theory. Further researches can be done to find out the usefulness of the other three angles in translation studies.The research finds out that Shapiro’s translation is consistent with the fundamental ideas of Adaptation Theory. There are adaptations to communicative contextual correlates and to linguistic contextual correlates in both interpreting the ST and producing the TT. This is why he has correctly understood the ST and makes the TT expressive, readable and easily accepted. The research findings may serve as a guidance to translation practice. To be specific, translation is a dual process of continuous adaptation and choice making. In the phase of interpretation, there are adaptations to the ST author’s and the translator’s mental world, social world and physical world and adaptations to each linguistic contextual correlate in Chinese. In producing the TT, there are adaptations to the sponsor’s, the press’, TT readers’ and the translator’s mental world, social world and physical world and to each linguistic contextual correlate in English.