A Report On The E-C Translation Of Our Wayward Fate(Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Contextual Correlates Of Adaptability

Literature serves as an important bridge of communication in multicultural society.And as one of the four literary genres,the translation of fictions is considered as a kind of cross-linguistic and cross-cultural communication.The process of translation requires the understanding of language,which is produced in a specific environment.That is to say,the choice and use of language are inseparable from the specific context.Therefore,the comprehension and translation of fictions are closely related to the context and should be carried out in its specific context.This report chooses the fiction Our Wayward Fate written by a Chinese American writer Gloria Chao as the object of translation project.The fiction features unique language style with its theme involving identity and cultural conflicts.According to Adaptation Theory proposed by Jef Verschueren,the use of language is a continuous process of making choices and adaptation.The reasons why language users can make proper choices are the features of languages:variability,negotiability and adaptability.Based on the contextual correlates of adaptability,this report discusses choices and adaptation made by the translator in the process of translation,and analyzes the guiding influence of communicative context(the mental world,the social world and the physical world)and linguistic context(contextual cohesion,intertextuality and sequencing)on translation practice.Through detailed analyses of Our Wayward Fate,this report discusses that the translator should make adaptation to the mental world,the social world and the physical world of characters,as well as linguistic context,so as to ensure that the translation meets the cognition and aesthetic expectations of the target readers on the basis of retaining the original style.In this regard,the author chooses corresponding translation methods and techniques,such as free translation,zero translation,conversion,inversion,negation,explicitation,amplification,adding annotations and so forth.This report demonstrates that under the guidance of the contextual correlates of adaptability,on the one hand,the translator can master character images and language features of the source text more nicely,as well as reproduce the original style more accurately and rigorously;on the other hand,the target readers can better understand the personalities of characters and their social relations,which is helpful for them to understand the plots and grasp the theme of the fiction.The author hopes that this report can offer a new theoretical perspective for translators to improve the quality of translation,and provide certain references for the future translation of this kind of works.