On Dynamic Context Adaptation In Cultural Translation

In light of Jef Verschueren's adaptation theory, the study on the relationship between the context and language using has stepped into a new stage. The adaptation theory, which elaborates on dynamic meaning generation in various contexts and dynamic context adaptation, is applied to translation studies in the present thesis. Through a qualitative study and also a case study, the thesis firstly takes the adaptation theory as the theoretical foundation to make a meaningful exploration of dynamic context adaptation, and then selects The True Story of Ah Q as the case to provide the substantial facts for the point.First of all, the author of this thesis defines translation as cultural translation for the sake of the cultural traits of the languages, assuming that cultural conflicts caused by the contextual contrast between the languages are the hardest barriers in translation. Then, the author makes a detailed introduction to Jef Verschueren's adaptation theory on the context analysis in actual language using. Next, from a pragmatic perspective the thesis demonstrates that cultural translation is a process of dynamic adaptation to the contexts in the cross-cultural communication. Afterwards, as a self-support, dynamic adaptations to the linguistic context and cultural context between English and Chinese are fully investigated. In the end, the substantial examples in the translated versions of The True Story of Ah Q are elaborated and the corresponding translation strategies are summarized to view out how the dynamic context adaptation works in Chinese-English translation. To sum up, the author of this thesis tentatively proves that the dynamic context adaptation is an efficient way to deal with the cultural barriers caused by different linguistic and cultural contexts between Chinese and English to make a contribution to the strategies in cultural translation.Upon the above results, this thesis probes into the critical role of the context in cultural translation and lays an emphasis on dynamic context adaptation and the translation strategies adopted in favor of the successful transference of the cultural information.