A Comparative Study On The Translation Of Address Terms From The Perspective Of The Adaptation Theory

In recent years,as a new strategy for the development of national culture,the “going global” of Chinese literature has become an important way through which to show the unique charm of Chinese literature and to push Chinese literary to the world.HLM as the classical specimen of Chinese ancient literature,has been the research focus of scholars from all walks of life since the ancient time,so that an independent research school has been formed—“Redology”.Nowadays,the HLM has attracted more and more attention from overseas.Under the state's macro cultural policy,it has become an important goal of literary translation to extend HLM to the rest of the world.Address terms are not only cultural problems,but also a pragmatic problem of language.AT is a theoretical innovation to investigate language use.Its starting point is the relationship between human beings and society,language and culture.AT takes the pragmatics “in general functional perspective” as the core,advocating the idea that language users make a choice to conform to the social environment in a specific cultural background and context.Therefore,to investigate the use of language,we must connect the language phenomenon with language use from the cognitive,social and cultural perspectives.HLM is a shining pearl in classical Chinese literature.In this novel of aristocratic families in Chinese feudal society,the address terms used by various characters in language communication are rich and diversified and the rules to follow or the influencing factors of their use are complex and varied,which makes it a perfect corpus for relevant studies on the translation of address terms.Based on this,this thesis makes an analysis of the translation of the address terms in the HLM from the perspective of AT and examines the purpose of using different address terms in a dynamic communicative context intending to find out feasible translation methods to actualize adaptation in cross-cultural contexts.Therefore,this thesis selects four representative characters: the Lady Dowager,Wang Xifeng,Jia Baoyu and Lin daiyu.By analyzing the different address terms of these four characters by other characters in the novel.This study discusses the application of AT in translating address terms in HLM and compares the similarities and differences in the translation choices between the Yangs' and Hawkes' versions.This thesis mainly focuses on the three questions: 1.How does AT find its expression in translating address terms in HLM? 2.In the two versions of HLM,what methods have the two translators adopted respectively to actualize the adaptation to different cultural contexts? 3.Judging from the two versions,what principles should a translator follow to improve the acceptability of his version in translating address terms?After analyzing the selected cases in the study,the following three answers can be drawn:1.In the process of translating address terms in HLM,AT has been fully embodied,which actualized the adaptation to the context and retained the cultural connotation of the ST to a greater extent.The “three worlds” of AT are fully reflected in translating address terms in HLM.The adaptation to the physical world is reflected by the influence of spatial and temporal factors on the choice of address terms.The adaptation to the social world is reflected by the influence of power and solidarity factors.The adaptation to the mental world is reflected by the influence of emotion,intention and personality of the addresser.Besides,to choose an address term is a dynamic adaptation process according to different context.The dynamics and salience of adaptability are also embodied in the translation of address terms.2.After comparing the different choices of translating address terms is the two versions,the author finds that both Yang's and Hawkes' versions are mostly influenced by the factors in the social world.The difference is that in the process of adapting to the social world,the Yangs tend to adapt to the power factor of social world by using formal terms like social titles in most cases.By contrast,Hawkes mainly adapts to the solidarity factors of the social world.He prefers to use kinship terms to show the kin relationship between characters.In addition,more nicknames and given names of characters are chosen by Hawkes to adapt to the mental world,which can reveal the personality,emotion and intention of the characters more directly.3.Judging from the strong and weak points of two versions,there are five suggested principles that translators should follow to improve the acceptability of his version in translating address terms: Firstly,translators should make full use of AT and take into account all the factors that affect the translation of address terms of AT.Secondly,translators should understand the actual context to choose proper address terms.Thirdly,translators should bear the intended target readers in mind and choose proper translation methods to improve the comprehensibility of the translation.Fourthly,translators should use equivalent or similar words to translate the address terms that do not adequately match between the ST and TT.Last but not least,translators should reproduce of the spirit and tone of the ST.The translation of Chinese literary works may determine the spread of Chinese culture overseas.In the process of translation,making appropriate choices by adapting to the target context determines the quality of the translation of literary works.Therefore,the author makes a comparative analysis of the similarities and differences in translating address terms in Yang and Hawkes' versions to explore the different choices between Chinese and Western translators in the target language,hoping providing more suggestions for the “going global” of Chinese classical literature.