Ecological Adaptation And Selection In Literary Translation

Eco-translatology defines translation as a selection activity of the translator’s adaptationto fit the translational eco-environment. In light of the translation principle ofmulti-dimensional adaptation and adaptive selection, translation relatively focuses on adaptiveselections and transformations in the linguistic, cultural and communicative aspects. Currently,the theory of eco-translatology is widely applied to research literary translation, translation ofbusiness and law, interpretation and so on. Most of the literary translation studies haveanalyzed the reasons of one successful English translated version or of the translator’sselection of some translation strategies and methods from the perspective of adaptation andselection. However, the studies on the translator’s specific adaptation and selection are farbeing from enough.Literary translation is a selection activity of the literary translator’s adaptation to fit thetranslational eco-environment. In light of the translation principle of eco-translatology, themore specific multi-dimensional transformations of literary translation manifest in terms ofthe language style, culture translation strategy and translation purpose. Guided with theperceptive of adaption and selection, the thesis discusses the translator’s adaptations to thepolitical and socio-cultural environments, language style of the source text and the targetreader’s needs, etc. based on the three Chinese versions of Sister Carrie.The main body of the thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One introduces someimportant concepts of eco-translatology and expounds the enlightenment of eco-translatologyto the translation studies of the Chinese versions of Sister Carrie. Chapter Two discusses thetranslator’s adaptation to the political and socio-cultural environments and the selection of thetranslation purpose of the Chinese translated version. In literary translation, a translator’stranslation purpose should first subordinate to the political environment. Chapter Threeanalyzes how the translator gives full play to his/her lexical, syntactic and rhetoriccompetence in choosing the language style of the Chinese translated version. Literarytranslators need to adapt to the source text and select the corresponding style in the Chinesetranslated version to represent the contents and style of the source text. Chapter Four exploresthe translator’s adaption to the target reader’s needs and the selection of strategies of culture translation. No matter what kinds of translation strategies (foreignization or domestication)the translators choose, it can be regarded as their intentions to better adapt to the translationaleco-environment. Through the comparative study on the three Chinese versions of SisterCarrie, the thesis concludes that literary translation is a complex process which filled withtranslator’s constant adaptation and selection. The adaptation is selective, at the same time,the selection is adaptive. Literary translators need to choose those works which correspond totheir competence and to try their best to make multi-dimensional adaptation to the politicaland socio-cultural environments, the language style of the source text and the target reader’sneeds so that they can make optimum selections in terms of the translation purpose, thelanguage style of the target text and strategies of culture translation and hence produce a goodtranslated version which possesses a high degree of holistic adaptation and selection.