On Novel Dialogue Translation From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Dialogue is the most important and wonderful part of the novel. Dialogue has its communicative, sociocultural and verbal features and it plays an important role in revealing the character’s personality, reflecting the social reality, attracting the reader’s attention and advancing the story plot. Dialogue translation should not be ignored in the novel translation.Adaptation Theory was put forward by Verschueren in 1999. The key of the theory is that language use is a process of making dynamic adaptations and it emphasizes that the process of language use is a continuous making of linguistic choices based on the inside and outside surroundings of language with different degrees of salience. This paper attempts to investigate novel dialogue translation from the perspective of Verschueren’s adaptation theory.Firstly, the paper analyzes the characteristics of novel dialogue and the previous studies in this field. It points out that the application and significance of adaptation theory in novel translation. The paper also explores how selection and dynamic adaptation are made by translator according to the communicative needs in the translation process. It mainly focuses on the three aspects of communicative contexts (the mental world, the social world and the physical world) and the translator’s dynamic contextual adaptation to linguistic contexts. Finally, by analyzing the novel dialogue translation in Katherine Mansfield’s Short Stories the study concludes that the application of adaptation theory shows feasibility and rationality in the process of translation. In addition, it also reveals the significance for novel dialogue translation.The combination of adaptation theory and analysis of novel dialogue refines the study of literary works, helps readers to dig out deeper meaning and implied meaning for better understanding of literary works. It can deepen the grasp of the image and personalities of the characters portrayed and better the understanding of the theme and plot. The paper agrees that in order to make the communication go smoothly we should also consider these pragmatic principles in our daily communication.