A Study Of Fictional Dialogue Translation From The Perspective Of Context

As one of the most important methods to portray characters and promote plot, fictional dialogue is also a reflection of the author's writing style. The dialogue in fiction is always short, flexible, derived from daily life but full of vitality. More importantly, its profound implied meaning between the lines can always provide inspirations for the readers. Therefore, in the translating of fiction, dialogue translation plays a significant role in grasping and conveying the essence of the fiction. Since dialogue occurs in different situations and cannot escape from the specific context, so in translating the dialogue, the influence of context should not be ignored. Context is a critical concept in linguistics, which refers to the situations and circumstances of language use. Without the specific context, it would be difficult to define the meaning of an expression so the communication can not be achieved. Therefore, the creation, understanding and conveyance of meaning are closely related to the context. Translation is to translate meaning, so the significance of context for translation is undoubted.Based on previous studies, this paper attempts to combine the equivalence theory in translation with the conceptualization of context, and proposes that the shift in translation is firstly the shift in context, then the specific shifts in word and grammatical or at other levels. In order to achieve the equivalence between the source text and the target text and to help the target readers appreciate the translation as the same as the original readers do, the contextual equivalence is the premise of accurate translation. If the context of source text is largely approximate to that of the target text, the translator would better grasp the author's intention and the essence of the work, then reconstruct them faithfully in his translation. The dialogue translation in fictional translation can not be conducted without taking specific context into consideration. Fortress Besieged is one of the masterpieces of Qian Zhongshu, which is famous for its profound theme, vivid characters, wit language and unique satiric style. The whole book is composed by dialogues, psychological descriptions and narration, among which dialogues take a large proportion. It is the dialogue that gives a full display of the satiric art and depicts the vivid character. Therefore, taking Fortress Besieged as a case study, this paper intends to study the fictional dialogue translation in Fortress Besieged from the perspective of context, namely, to compare the context of the original text and the context of its translation from linguistic context, situational context and cultural context respectively. Through contextual analysis, this paper reveals that the contextual equivalence is not achieved to certain degree, thus there are some mistranslations. Besides, the translators adopted literal translation as their major translation strategy, which directly leads to plain and wooden words. In general, the humorous flavor in the original dialogue is lost in its translation. Therefore, during fictional dialogue translation, the translator should not only improve context consciousness and respect linguistic norms, but also consider the readability, coherence and cohesion of the dialogue. In a word, a translator should faithfully reproduce the contextual elements in the translation so as to ensure translation quality.