A Study Of The Translation Of Chronicle Of A Blood Merchant From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Chronicle of a Blood Merchant is one of the representative works of Chinese Avant-garde literature writer Yu Hua,which has received widespread attention once it was published.This novel has been translated into many languages,and published in more than 40 countries and regions in the world.Many Chinese scholars have studied its Chinese version from different aspects,but few have studied its English version.This article takes Verschueren’s adaptation theory as the theoretical framework,and conducts a comprehensive and detailed analysis of its English version.It analyzes the English version of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant from four dimensions,namely: Contextual Correlates of Adaptability,Structural Objects of Adaptability,The Dynamics of Adaptability,and Salience of the Adaptation Processes.Contextual Correlates of Adaptability includes the adaptation to the mental world,social world and physical world.Structural Objects of Adaptability includes adaptation to lexical level,syntactic level and paragraph cohesion.In the Dynamics of Adaptability,analyze the dynamic adaptation to the context and structure in the translation process.And in Salience of the Adaptation Processes,analyze the impact of the translator’s own level of awareness on the translation.The article uses descriptive research method to analyze if these adaptations are realized from the perspective of dynamic adaptation.This article believes that the English translation of the work adopts flexible and diverse translation methods and strategies,to show Chinese literature in a specific period to Western readers,so that the target language readers are closer to the source language culture.This article analyzes the causes of various differences in the translation process from the perspective of dynamic adaptation and the final effects of the translated text.The conclusions are as following:(1)There are many factors that influence the translator’s choice and adaptation,such as the translator’s own understanding of the original text,the culture differences between Chinese and Western countries,and the consideration and acceptance of the target language readers,etc.(2)In the English version of Chronicle of a Blood Merchant,Andrew Jones mainly adopted literal translation,free translation,additional translation,substitution,omission,and transliteration.(3)The translator conforms to the pragmatic habits of the target language readers in translation,and satisfies the target language readers’ reading expectations in terms of ensuring the readability of the translation.Meanwhile,the English version obtains the most recognition of the target language readers.