On The English Translation Of Alien Sources In Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian is among the most popular works of the contemporary famous writer Liu Zhenyun.As the first full-length novel written by Liu after he won the Mao Dun Literary Prize,this novel enjoys great popularity when it first came out in 2002.The film adapted from this novel had won several big prizes abroad before it was shown in China in 2016.There are numerous alien sources in this novel,fully representing China's official circles,cultural tradition and social atmosphere at that time.Hence,how to express those alien sources relevantly in the process of translation remains to be a topic worth further researches,for which can not only provide empirical evidence for the translation of alien sources,but also promote international communication of Chinese culture.Considering its popularity among people,this research selects Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian and its English version as research objects to explore the general translation pattern of alien sources in novel from the perspective of Adaptation Theory.Based on a Chinese-English bilingual parallel database,this research classifies the alien sources in Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian by reference to Professor He Yuanjian's criteria and compares the patterns for translating alien sources in Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian with Professor He's research findings,in the hope of testifying Adaptation Theory and providing empirical evidence for the translation of alien sources.The major findings are shown as follows:(1)There are 468 alien sources in the novel Wo Bu Shi Pan Jinlian,which can be divided into five categories: linguistic alien sources(LAS),social alien sources(SAS),material alien sources(MAS),religious alien sources(RAS)and political alien sources(PAS).(2)The English version employs five translation strategies for alien sources in the following trend: paraphrasing > trans-coding > substitution > deletion > synthesization.Specifically speaking,all the other three categories of alien sources are translated in the same pattern(paraphrasing > trans-coding > substitution > deletion ? synthesization)except for MAS(in which trans-coding outnumbers paraphrasing)and PAS(synthesization outnumbers deletion with one example).(3)Compared with Professor He Yuanjian's research findings,this research catches sight of a new translation strategy for alien sources,i.e.synthesization.Besides,the translation pattern for PAS(paraphrasing as the main translation strategy)is not the same as that found by Professor He Yuanjian in White Papers(trans-coding as the main translation strategy).The research results verifies the significance and effectiveness of Adaptation Theory in guiding alien sources translation,as well as the reliability of Professor He Yuanjian's research findings.In conclusion,there exist different strategies for translating different types of alien sources.However,no matter what kind of translation strategy is chosen in translating alien sources,translators are supposed to adapt their strategies to different contexts of target language to the full extent for the sake of preserving the quintessence of source language and promoting international communication of Chinese culture.