A Study Of The English Version Of Wo De Di Wang Sheng Ya From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Wo De Di Wang Sheng Ya by Su Tong,was published in 2005.It was an imaginary historical novel which describes Emperor Duan Bai's life.As an innocent prince,Duan Bai was forced to the crown and manipulated by his grandmother Lady Huang Fu.The Emperor was fatuous and he lost his throne in a war and became a wire dancer.The English version My life as Emperor by Howard Goldblatt was published in 2005.After its publication,many scholars have studied it from various perspectives.However,few of them studied it from the perspective of the Adaptation Theory.This thesis will study My life as Emperor from the perspective of the Adaptation Theory.The Adaptation Theory was established by Jef Verschueren in Pragmatic as a Theory of Linguistic Adaptation.According to Verschueren,using language is a process which consists of continuous making of choices consciously or unconsciously for language-internal and/or language-external reasons.And translation is a cross-cultural communication activity which is also a process consisting of series of choices.In order to make the target text obtain an optimum contextual effect,first and foremost,the translator has to make a correct inference of the original communicative intention,then he has to make optimal selections constantly in order to adapt to the original text.Verschueren has defined four angles of investigating language use:contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and the salience of adaptability processes.This thesis analyzes My Life as Emperor from these four aspects.Firstly,in terms of contextual correlates of adaptability,the thesis analyzes the English version from two parts:communicative context(includes physical world,social world and mental world)and linguistic context(includes cohesion and intertextuality).Secondly,in terms of structure objects of adaptability,the thesis analyzes the English version from style,phonological level,lexical level and syntactic level.Thirdly,the thesis analyzes how Goldblatt makes dynamic adaptation according to temporal dimension and context.Finally,the thesis analyzes how Goldblatt makes choices according to his translation purpose.This study shows that the Adaptation Theory provides translation study with a comprehensive perspective,namely from the cultural,social and cognitive aspects.Besides,this theory tests whether a target text adapt to context,structure and other elements of original text or not.Translator's choices which are constricted by language internal or external elements and translation purpose are more theory-based.Checked against the theory of adaptation,Goldblatt's version is commendable although there is some room for improvement.The translator's choices in the process of translation should be highly motivated and adapt to the four angles of investigating language use.