On The Translation Of Social Deixis In Outlaws Of The Marsh Into English From The Persfropective Of Dynamic Adaptation To Cultural Context

With the rapid development of world economics and cultural communication,cultural problems in translation are drawing more and more attention.Correspondingly, now the translation of literature is taking more and moreresponsibility and playing a more and more important role than ever before, which isnot only introducing a literature work to people, but also taking the responsibility ofmanifesting the characteristics of national cultures and spreading national cultures toforeign countries. Especially in view of the fact that for a long time, the process ofChinese literature translation exists the problem of “regard western culture or valuesas the center”, so that we can have equal conversation with western culture andpositively transfer extensive and profound Chinese culture implied in the works,which has become the internal requirement of maintaining vitality of Chinese cultureand also the objective need of the development of human civilization progress.Outlaws of the Marsh contains rich culture. Therefore, its appearance not only hasliterary significance but also a reflection of a cultural phenomenon.Outlaws of the Marsh is the first Chapter novel which is written in Vernacularlanguage in Chinese history and occupies a very important position not only Chineseliterature but also in world literature. The novel is based on the vivid and fluentspoken dialect, whose language is natural, popular and vivid, and close to life. As aresult, it has become a milestone of the vernacular literature in China. Outlaws of theMarsh contains a large number of social deixis, which have characteristics of timesand reflect the Chinese patriarchal clan system, the content of the aspects such associal environment, ceremonial customs and son on. So it is worthy of further study.This thesis aims to discuss the translation of social deixis in Outlaws of theMarsh into English. Social deixis is an important part of deixis, which reflects thesocial status of language users and the social relationships between language users. Itcontains the personal pronouns and the addressing terms, but in this thesis we willonly study the addressing terms. Due to the different development process of Chineseand western culture, social deixis contains different social cultural connotations.Especially the Confucianism and feudal ethnic code influenced Chinese people for a very long time, people developed a patriarchal system, which has high respect for thehierarchical order between the elder and the younger and the different social statusbetween men and women. Social deixis plays a very important role in maintaining thestrict feudal hierarchical order. As a result, there is a large system of kinship terms anda system of honorifics and humility terms in Chinese. However, due to the influenceof Christian culture, the western people advocate personal value and emphasize selfexpression. Besides, nuclear family is the center in western countries, in which onlythe relationship between parents and children is very clear, other relationships arevery general and fuzzy. Therefore, the kinship terms in English are quite simple,humility terms is totally absent, and honorifics is in a rather small number. So it isvery difficult to translate Chinese social deixis into English. In addition, social deixisitself changes with the continuous development of society. The cultural differenceslead to some lexical and cultural gap between English and Chinese social deixsi. As aresult, when translation Chinese social deixis into English, it is very difficult totransmit the original cultural information implicated in social deixis to the targetculture faithfully and accurately.This thesis takes Sidney Shapiro’s English version of Outlaws of the Marsh asresearch object. All the examples are selected from a corpus of Outlaws of the Marsh..This thesis carries on the detailed classification of social deixis in Outlaws of theMarsh and a large amount of case analysis, and tries to explore the culturalinformation implied in social deixis from the perspective of dynamic adaptation tocultural context. The theoretical foundation of the thesis is the theory of adaptationproposed by Jes Verschueren. Dynamic adaptation to cultural context which isproposed by this theory provides a perspective for the translation of social deixis. Thefindings of the research are as the followings: because the same social deixis mayhave different meanings in different cultural context, so the translation of social deixisshould be carried on in cultural context. Adaptation to cultural context can not onlydecide whether to translate the cultural information implied in the social deixis or notbut also proves to be a very good way to solve the lexical and cultural gap betweenEnglish and Chinese social deixis. Under the light of dynamic adaptation to culturalcontext, we can take different translation methods and strategies. This thesis consists of three parts; they are an introduction, the main body andthe conclusion. The main contents are as the followings:The first part is the introduction, which reviews the previous literature reviewabout social deixis and points out that this thesis tries to explore the translation ofsocial deixis from a new perspective of dynamic adaptation to cultural context. Theintroduction also introduces the theoretical framework of this paper and the researchaim and practical meaning of the paper.The second part is the main body, which is made up by the following fourchapters:The first chapter is the literature review, which is classified into four sections.The first section mainly reviewed and generalized the domestic and foreign scholars’research of deixis and social deixis. The second section mainly introduced the studyof Chinese social deixis and English social deixis, which include the similarities anddifferences between English and Chinese social deixis, and the reasons that caused thesimilarities and differences between English and Chinese social deixis. The thirdsection introduced the theoretical framework of this thesis. It introduced thedefinitions and classification of context, culture and cultural context, the theory ofdynamic adaptation, dynamic adaptation to cultural context and its role in translation.Adaptation theory was proposed by the general secretary of International PragmaticAssociation, Belgium pragmatist Jef Verschueren in his famous book UnderstandingPragmatics which was published in1999. Verschueren thinks pragmatics shouldstudy the variability, negotiability and adaptability of language. As for languageadaptation, Verschueren thinks it needs to investigate four aspects at the same time,that is, contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability, and the salience of adaptation processes, in which dynamicsof adaptability is the core of the four. The forth section mainly discussed theclassification of social deixis in Outlaws of the Marsh. Outlaws of the Marsh is notonly an ancient literature masterpiece, but also a cyclopedia that reflects Chineseancient culture. There is a large number of social deixis in Outlaws of the Marsh. Inthis thesis we classified them into three kinds. They are kinship terms, honorifics andhumility terms. Kinship terms include three kinds: they are kinship terms which are used to reflect seniority; kinship terms which are used to reflect the distinctionbetween male and female and kinship terms which are used to reflect the distinctionbetween clan members and affinity. Honorifics are divided into: honorifics that areused to refer to the addressee’s relatives; honorifics that are used to refer to theaddresser’s superior and honorifics that are used to refer to the old. Humility terms areclassified into two kinds: they are humility terms refer to the addresser himself andhumility terms refer to the addresser’s relatives.The second chapter introduces the translation of kinship terms within the theoryof dynamic adaptation to cultural context, that is, the translation of kinship terms thatare used to reflect seniority; the translation of kinship terms that are used to reflect thedistinction between male and female and the translation of kinship terms that are usedto reflect the distinction between clan members and affinity.The third chapter introduces the translation of honorifics within the theory ofdynamic adaptation to cultural context, that is, the translation of honorifics which areused to refer to the addressee’s relatives; the translation of honorifics which are usedto refer to the addresser’s superior and the translation of honorifics which are used torefer to the old.The forth chapter introduces the translation of humility terms within the theoryof dynamic adaptation to cultural context, that is, the translation of humility that referto the addresser himself and the translation of humility terms that refer to theaddresser’s relatives.The third part is the conclusion of the thesis. It concludes the whole thesis andpoints out the major findings and limitations of the thesis, and gives some suggestionsfor further research.