A Comparative Study On The Three Chinese Versions Of On The Road From The Perspective Of Translation As Adaptive Variation

Since On the Road was published in the 1950 s, it has aroused much controversy, because of its rebellious thought, deviant theme and spontaneous writing. Though there were different views from the critics, this novel gradually attained its status as a modern classic. In 1972, On the Road finally was listed into the Penguin Modern Classics series by the Penguin Publishing House. The literary journey of On the Road in China spanned about half a century and ended with the renewal of the translated text. There are four Chinese versions of On the Road in the mainland China. Among them, Tao Yueqing and He Xiaoli s, Wen Chu an s and Wang Yongnian s versions stand out for their unique significance and appeal. Tao Yueqing and He Xiaoli s version was the first published Chinese version of On the Road and popularized the novel in China; The version published in 1998 was translated by Wen Chuan who was the expert of !Beat Generation". The translated text was the first complete Chinese version, and it corrected the misunderstanding of this novel among Chinese readers; Wang Yongnian s was the latest Chinese version of On the Road, and it adopted the foreignization translation strategy. This version evoked a series of strong repercussions from readers and mass media. In view of these particularities, the thesis selects the three Chinese versions as the subject of the study to conduct comparison and analysis.The translation of On the Road in China was not enough in the past, and there were rare studies on making a comparative and diachronic research of several Chinese versions. Up to now, the comparative studies on On the Road focus on two Chinese versions from the perspective of manipulation theory. In view of this deficiency, this thesis intends to make a comparative study on three Chinese versions of On the Road from the perspective of Translation as Adaptive Variation so as to complement the deficiency in research. Within this translation-as-adaptive-variation framework, translation is the product of human beings cross-language and cross-culture and is a communication of human beings adaptation to different contexts. In order to adapt to different communicative contexts, translators must adopt some variational strategies in the translation process, and finally there are different translational versions. In this sense, Translation as Adaptive Variation is a very good theoretical framework applicable to comparative studies on texts. This thesis attempts to make a comparative study on the three Chinese versions of On the Road on basis of Translation as Adaptive Variation in an effort to explore their respective degree of holistic adaptation and variation from the aspects of multi-dimensional translation, readers responses and translators competence.Through the comparison and analysis, Tao Yueqing and He Xiaoli selected plain words and sentences of their time but omitted uncommon expressions in the original text, which adapted to the readers of their period. Whereas Wen Chu an adopted domestication and provided the appropriate annotations for cultural elements to meet the reader’s aesthetic need, which was Wen s intended strategy for adapting to the translational contexts. By contrast, because of the influence of personal ideology and the transaltional context of Wang s time, Wang Yongnian took foreignization and selected Europeanized lexical and syntactic forms, which catered for the readers of his period. Based on the above analysis, it could be found Tao Yueqing and He Xiaoli s, Wen Chuan s and Wang Yongnian s versions embody the characteristics of translators and their times respectively. The three versions are the outcome of their adaptation and variation in certain translational context.