On Novel Dialogue Translation From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Dialogue is an integral part in most novels. It can help to model characters and develop the plot, reveal themes of novels and attract readers. It often embodies the aesthetic beauty and styles of the novelists. In view of its importance, its translation deserves special attention in the process of translating the whole novel. However, novel dialogue translation is far more complex than imagined, and therefore, few studies are done in this field, especially from the perspective of adaptation theory. This paper attempts to investigate the novel dialogue translation from the perspective of Verschueren's adaptation theory which is a relatively new-born pragmatic theory.Jef Verschueren's pragmatic adaptation theory explains language use from cognitive, social and culture aspects and assumes that language use is a continuous making of linguistic choices for the purpose of satisfying the needs of communication, consciously or unconsciously. Quite a few studies have been done in the field of translation from the perspective of adaptation theory and the theory has shown its great explanatory force in translation studies. Novel dialogue translation is a process of using language, and in the meantime a process of making choices, which makes it possible to probe into novel dialogue translation from the perspective of adaptation theory.Through the analysis of data chosen from novel Emma, the paper explores how selection and dynamic adaptation are made by translators according to the communicative needs in the translation process. It mainly focuses on the translator's dynamic contextual adaptation to linguistic contexts and three aspects of communicative contexts: the mental world, the social world and the physical world.Through theoretical deduction and data analysis, the major findings are summarized as follows:(1) It will be proved that the translation of novel dialogue is a process of choice-making which is based on the dynamic adaptation of many contexts. Verschueren's adaptation theory provides a new theoretical perspective to the research of novel dialogue translation.(2) The case analysis shows that to investigate various aspects of the communicative contexts of novel dialogues and to make dynamic adaptations to them help translators to produce a better translation and achieve communicative needs.(3) In the process of choosing translation strategies, the translators are affected by various factors, as a result, they have to make adaptations to mental, social and physical world, consciously or unconsciously. Since the generation of the three worlds is dynamic, the adaptation made on the strategies of translating novel dialogues is also dynamic.