Adaptation And Selection:an Eco-Translatology Interpretation Of Yang Jiasheng's Chinese Version Of Walden

Walden is the representative work of the 19 th century American transcendentalism writer Henry David Thoreau. It is an authentic portrait of Thoreau's more than two-year reclusive life along the lakeside of Walden, which is also a concentrated reflection of his transcendental philosophies.This thesis is based on the theoretical framework of “Eco-translatology” which was proposed by Professor Hu Gengshen, and attempts to analyze from the perspective of “translation as adaptation and selection”, the gains and losses of the Chinese version of Walden that translated by Guangxi translator Yang Jiasheng. The thesis mainly studied around the aspects of the translator's “adaptive selections” and “selective adaptations”. As for the translator's “adaptive selections”, analysis was carried on from the perspectives of linguistic dimension, cultural dimension, and the communicative dimension. The “selective adaptations” to the translational eco-environment were discussed upon Yang Jiasheng's adaptations to ancient Chinese elements, as well as the Chinese poetic expression.In conclusion, it is shown that Eco-translatology provided brand-new research perspectives for translation studies. Thus, the viability to analyze the Chinese version of Yang Jiasheng's Walden under Eco-translatology perspective is proved. Moreover, although Yang's translation version is far from perfect, he has achieved successful transformation of Walden from English to Chinese by making series of “adaptive selections” and “selective adaptations” in the “translational eco-environment”. Last but not least, it is sincerely hoped that the thesis will attract more attention to excellent Guangxi translators and their works, so as to push bigger and further development in Guangxi translation business.