Research On The Nickname Translation In Outlaws Of The Marsh From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

The Outlaws of the Marsh is a Chinese fiction written by the famous litterateur Shi Naian in Yuan and Ming Dynasty. It tells the story of 108 heroes in the late Song Dynasty led by the man called Song Jiang, who launched an uprising on Liangshan hills. The author lay out the whole process of the threshold, prosperity and failure at last of the uprising vividly in descriptive skills and lively language style, presented not only exciting and interlocking stories one by one but also enduring heroic figures with distinct personalities. Moreover, the Outlaws of the Marsh is the first colloquial fictions in Chinese history, which is remembered as one of the four great classical Chinese novels for its high artistic value and specific historic role. This work revealed the decadence and darkness of the old feudal ruling class, and praised the 108 hereon spirit of resistance, justice action and powerful virtue, who were called “greenwood outlaws”. The Outlaws of the Marsh is the first work in Chinese literature to describe peasant uprising comprehensively and realistically, and with its lively and acute critique it is truly the gem of Chinese literature.Apart from the spirit the fiction has praised, the different characters, vivid and fresh in the novel is another successful point. In the original version of The Outlaws of the Marsh the 108 heroes all have their own nicknames some showed out their distinct personality and macroscopic features, some showed out their skills and abilities, some showed out their family background or official position. The nickname is not only a linguistic phenomenon, but also a cultural phenomenon, which is the soul of the character.Recent years the research on different versions of The Outlaws of the Marsh emerged one after another and the majorities are about the translators’ subjectivity, foreignization and domestication, literal translation and free translation. Jef Verschueren in Belgium first put forward “Adaptation Theory” in Pragmatics as a Theory of Linguistics Adaptation. In this theory, Jef Verschueren explains the language from a new perspective in 1987, and then he developed this theory in Understanding Pragmatics published in 1999. The Linguistic Adaptation Theory emphasizes that the language choice should be accordance with the communicative environment, communicative purpose and communicative goals. However, the process of translation is just the process of language choice. The translator would be influenced by many factors and must adapt to some of these factors to realize the target of language transformation. In this paper, the author makes a tentative step to study the translation of the nicknames in Shapiro’s version from the perspective of Linguist Adaptation Theory and explore how the translator successfully recreate the characters in the novel and ensure the version’s accuracy in target language. Apart from this, this paper attempts to make a comparative research between the translations of nicknames in different translation versions. So it is concluded that the process of translation should adapt to Linguistic Adaptation Theory in order to realize language transformation successfully and present a good version for target readers easy to understand and accept. It not only provides new research perspective for the study of the nickname translation of the Outlaws of the Marsh, but also a new exploration of the application of Linguistic Adaptation Theory in translation practice.The thesis falls into five parts.Chapter one introduces the research background, the research purpose, research significance and research questions.Chapter two deals with the literature reviews relating to The Outlaws of the Marsh, the nicknames, and the theory of Linguistic Adaptation.Chapter three systematically presents the whole theory of Linguistic Adaptation Theory, including the definition, three properties of language and four angles of investigation and the relationship between Linguistic Adaptation Theory and translation.Chapter four analyzes Shapiro’s nicknames translation in Outlaws of the Marsh from Linguistic Adaptation Theory and gives a comparative analysis of different versions of The Outlaws of the Marsh to evaluate the different translation strategies of these translators in case study.Chapter five puts a conclusion to the thesis with major findings, implications and limitations of the study and suggestions for further research.Based on the discussion above, we can see the Linguistic Adaptation Theory has strong explanatory power to various language phenomenons as a pragmatic theory. The nicknames carrying rich cultural connotation and translation are the bridge of communication between different cultures, so it is of great value for translation study. The nicknames took important role to the creation of the content and figure in the work in the Outlaws of the Marsh. So it is of great significance of the study of the translation.