A Study On Lin Yutang’s Translation Of Culture-loaded Expressions In Dream Shadow From The Perspective Of Adaptation Theory

Dream Shadow, written by Zhang Chao, is a proverbial-style-essay, which presents philosophical thought or life taste in the form of brief proverbs and analects. It is encompassing in content, with a reputation as the oriental bible, highly regarded by Lin Yutang. With a deep understanding of Chinese and English culture, he translates it into English. There are lots of culture-loaded expressions translation involved. This thesis tries to analyze Lin Yutang’s translation of culture-loaded expressions in Dream Shadow from the perspective of adaptation theory. What should be noted is the classification of culture-loaded expressions. Apart from the seven types classified by Professor Wang Dechun, the sentence features loading the national culture and the language style resulted from the culture are also included.This thesis selects adaptation theory as the research perspective. Put forward by Verschueren in 1999, it is a functional perspective of pragmatics, which holds that language use is a dynamic process of continuous choice-making and adaptation. The three core properties of language: variability, adaptability and negotiability make the choice-making possible. The process is a mutual adaptation of contexts and linguistic choices. Linguistic devices are chosen to adapt to communicative needs and achieve the communicative intention. Choices are made at various levels of language: sounds, words, and sentences, etc. The choices made should also adapt to communicative contexts: social world, mental world and physical world. Translation is also a process of choice-making at various levels, because the translator has to weigh and consider choices,given extra-linguistic and linguistic factors. In recent years, adaptation theory has been used to explain some translation phenomenon. This thesis will make an analysis of Lin Yutang’s translation of culture-loaded expressions from extra-linguistic adaptation, the adaptation to the social world, the mental world and the physical world, and from linguistic adaptation at phonetic level, sentence level and style level..After analysis, in terms of extra-linguistic adaptation,(a) in order to adapt to the physical world or social world, Lin Yutang adopts the strategy of literal translation or transliteration with an explanative supplementary note in brackets, and the strategy of free translation to deal with the allusion translation.(b) To adapt to the mental world of the original author, Lin selects words which have the similar emotional strength as possible.In terms of the linguistic adaptation,(a) to deal with the difference in sounds between the west and the east, Lin translates the specific Chinese person names and place names according to Wade-Giles Romanization.(b) At the sentence level, the natural order is always adopted in Chinese, while the salient order in English. Lin adapts to the features of English by putting the key words at first. Besides, the inflexion of English leads to the strictness in form, while Chinese lays stress on the sensing, understanding the relation in deep meaning. Therefore, Lin connects the short Chinese sentences by the grammatical words.(c) As for the style, based on the fact that “dui ou” and parallelism is frequently used in Chinese ancient works, Lin chooses the same sentence structure and the same word class in the symmetrical sentences.The thesis includes five chapters. Chapter One is introduction, discussing the research significances, research objective, research methodology and theoretical framework. Chapter Two presents literature review, showing the definition, classification and factors contributing to the formation of culture-loaded expressions, as well as the previous studies of Lin Yutang’s translation of culture-loaded expressions. Chapter Three gives theoretical framework, introducing the key notions of the theory as well as the adaptation in different aspects. Chapter Four acts as the body. The author first makes a brief introduction of the English version of Dream Shadow and Lin Yutang, and then from the extra-linguistic adaptation and linguistic adaptation, the study is carried out by selecting the words and sentences in the book. Chapter Five is conclusion. The author conducts Lin Yutang’s translation strategies of culture-loaded expressions in Dream Shadow, and the implications on language education, as well as the limitations.The study on translation of culture-loaded expressions in this book will help readers know about the Chinese culture and wisdom, and provide guiding significances in the translation of culture-loaded expressions. The research also has significance in language education, in this thesis, English education and TCSL are mentioned. When it comes to language education, it is not only just about the sound, word, and grammar. This is especially true for the teaching of culture-loaded expressions, because they are used in specific social world, mental world and physical world. It is essential to get informed of the cultural background where they are used by introducing some classes about general situation of this country.