Translation As A Complex Adaptive System

Mu Si Lin De Zang Li is the first novel in China that comprehensively introduces the living conditions and customs of Chinese Muslims.The writer Huo Da,a Chinese Hui nationality,paints a Muslim family with a length of nearly 500,000 words,including the rise and fall of the country in a span of sixty years,the fate of people of 3 different generations,and two intertwined love tragedies that occur in different eras with different contents.The book macroscopically reviews the long and difficult footprints of Chinese Muslims,revealing their unique psychological structure in the impact and fusion of Chinese and Muslim cultures.The work won Huo Da the third Mao Dun Literature Award in 1991.And the English translation was translated by Guan Yuehua and Zhong Liangyu in 1992.It was included in the Panda Books Series and published by the Chinese Literature Press in the same year.The Complex Adaptive System(CAS)Theory was formally proposed by John Holland of the University of Michigan in 1994 at the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the SantaFe Institute(SFI).CAS is a complex dynamic system that consists of a great deal of adaptive agents nonlinearly interacting with each other according to a certain rule or model.Some scholars in domestic translation field have applied complexity science to translation studies,but the application of CAS theory in the translation field is still rare.Attempting to apply this theory to the analysis of the English translation of Mu Si Lin De Zang Li,this thesis probes into the mutual adaptation of the multiple agents in the translation process,including the writer,the translators,the political environment,the publishing house,the readers,etc.in the complex adaptive system of translation from three phases i.e.the pre-translation,translation,and post-translation phases.It is found that in the pre-translation period,the writer Huo Da gave birth to the outstanding Mao Dun Literature Award winner,Mu Si Lin De Zang Li.The translators Guan Yuehua and Zhong Liang became candidates to translate this novel for their strong translation competence.China Foreign Languages Publish Administration(CFLPA)was the exclusive administrative department for the publication of foreign works.In the political context of the overseas publicity of Chinese literature,each agent facilitated the English translation by mutual adaptation,which proved the co-adaptivity of the agents in the complex adaptive system of translation.During the process of translation,the translators adopted various translation methods,such as transliteration,literal translation,adaption,addition,omission and footnoting,to achieve the translation objectives.Accordingly the diversity of translation methods is clearly demonstrated in the complex adaptive system of translation.And the non-linearity of the complex adaptive system of translation is presented by translation methods like addition and omission.In the post-translation period,the favorable acceptance of the English version of the novel shows the mutual influence of multiple factors,such as the readers,the international political structure and current international status of China,which further verifies the fact that translation is a complex adaptive system.As a tentative research that combines complex adaptive system theory with the case of literary translation,this research is of theoretical reference value and can help us to have a deeper understanding of the nature and process of literary translation.