| Based on the adaptation theory put forward by Verschueren,a Belgian scholar,this thesis studies the English version of Cat Country by William A.Lyell,from three aspects: contextual correlates of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and salience of adaptation process.The first aspect includes communicative context and linguistic context.The former includes the physical world,the social world,and the mental world while the latter includes cohesion,intertextuality,and sequencing.Dynamics of adaptability mainly refers to the interaction between contextual and linguistic factors.The choice of language is more flexible.In this way,the generation of meaning is expressed as a dynamic process;the salience of adaptation process is related to the translator’s translation consciousness,including the translator’s choice and preference toward different words.This paper belongs to the qualitative research,mainly adopting the comparative analysis method,the specific analysis of case study method and the induction method.It is found that the reason concerning the popularity of William Lyell’s version of Cat Country is that on the basis of faithfulness to the original text and considering the understanding ability of English readers,Lyell adopts flexible translation methods.He clarifies time and space deixis,which conforms to the reader’s physical world;as for the Beijing dialect and expressions of cultural-loaded words,instead of translating them mechanically word by word,Lyell uses literal translation plus some notes or free translation as the translation method,which conforms to the reader’s social world;Lyell translates the writer’s intention and takes into account the target reader’s cognition,which conforms to the mental world.For the same word,Lyell translates it differently according to the constantly changing context,which conforms to the dynamics of adaptability.Based on the clear translation purpose,Lyell uses some vivid words,which reflects the translator’s high degree of salience.The thesis broadens the study on the English translation of Cat Country from a new perspective and provides a theoretical guideline for translators’ choosing words and making sentences during translation process. |
