Dynamics Of Adaptability And The Translations Of King Lear

All things in the world are in constant change and development and translation is no exception. Different versions of the same source text will appear during different periods in the target language, each having its own characteristics. King Lear is the most important tragedy by Shakespeare. This paper is to compare and analyze the three Chinese versions of King Lear, namely, Lin Shu's version, Zhu Shenghao's version and Fang Ping's version. Jef Verschueren, Secretary-General of International Pragmatics Association, puts forward a theory of adaptation which is used to understand and explain pragmatics from a new perspective in Understanding Pragmatics. Moreover, he proposes that pragmatics is actually a perspective on language. Dynamics of adaptability is the centre in the theory of adaptation which means the dynamic generation of meaning in language use, and dynamics of adaptability can be embodied from three particularly salient factors: (1) The temporal dimension: It is the bare fact that language use takes place over time. (2) Dynamics and context: Context is dynamic, including language user, mental world, social world, physical world, and linguistic context; (3) Dynamics and structure: The utterer and interpreter can move back and forth along the basically linear dimension at any stage in the process of meaning generation. This article tries to find out the differences and the causes of the differences of the three versions of King Lear on the basis of this theory. Through comparison and analysis, the following conclusions can be obtained: a) Re-translation is necessary; b) There is no ultimate version; c) The criterion of translation ought to be constantly modified to make it adapt to different times, different contexts and communicative purposes. Thus the dynamics of adaptability offers convincing explanations about translation, and the translating model of dynamics of adaptability also provides significant guidance for translation practice.