A Study On Xu Yuanchong’s Translation Of Romance Of The Western Bower From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Ever since its coming out in Yuan dynasty, Romance of the Western Bower composed by Wang Shipu has been hailed as the most distinguished drama. As an eminent translator in Chinese classical works, Xu Yuanchong’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower brings us musical beauty, visual beauty, image beauty and symbolic beauty. Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower has been for a long time attracting a great many of researchers, but most of their researches concentrate on microscopic levels. Researches concerning such issues as Xu’s translation of allusions, idioms and metaphors are easy to spot, however, the researches regarding a comprehensive and systematic study are far and between. In this thesis, the author will analyze Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower from the perspective of Adaptation Theory, which is a comprehensive and systematic study.Adaptation Theory was first put forward by Jef Verschueren, and then perfected in his book Understanding Pragmatics in1999. Adaptation Theory is a pragmatic theory which has strong explanatory power and good application value, and it is bound to have a good prospective because it comprehends and interprets pragmatics from a new perspective (He Ziran, Yu Guodong). Four angles of investigation are involved in Adaptation Theory:contextual correlates of adaptability; structural objects of adaptability; dynamics of adaptability; salience of the adaptation process. The four angles take linguistic, social and cultural factors into account. Therefore, the theory can be employed in an attempt to explore translation study due to the fact that the translation is a special form of language use. This thesis is conducted by means of qualitative research method, specifically speaking, the author will first analyze Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower, and then generalize the conclusion from his analysis. This thesis is designed to explain the fact that the process of Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower is a process of making choices.Five parts are incorporated in this paper:an introduction; literature review; theoretical framework; a study of Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower from the perspective of Adaptation Theory; conclusion. The introduction elaborates on the research background, research purpose, research significance, research questions, and research methodology. In the part of literature review, the author first presents the previous studies with reference to Adaptation Theory and Romance of the Western Bower, then points out the limitations of the previous studies, which makes his own research necessary. Theoretical framework is made up of a brief introduction of Adaptation Theory, three key notions, four angles of investigation and the enlightenment of the four angles on translation. A study of Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower from the perspective of Adaptation Theory pays close heed to the application of the Adaptation Theory to Xu’s translation. The conclusion part sums up the thesis.The study reveals that the process of Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower is a process of making choices in response to a certain purpose. Xu Yuanchong makes continuous dynamic choices with respect to contextual correlates and structural objects in the salience of the adaptation processes. In order to make the adaptations go smoothly, Xu Yuanchong mainly adopts three methods:intensifying the contrast at the lexical level; reconstructing the sentences at the discourse level; compensating for the loss of the meaning with the form at the aesthetic level. Under the guidance of Adaptation Theory, this thesis enables researchers to come up with some ideas while studying Xu’s translation of Romance of the Western Bower.