A Study On The English-chinese Translations Of Environmental Descriptions In The Picture Of Dorian Gray From The Perspective Of Construal Theory

Oscar Wilde,the representative of the aestheticism,conveys aesthetic features by special writing techniques.The Picture of Dorian Gray written by him was first published in 1891.It reveals the life of upper classes in Britain and presents opinions on youth and beauty.Besides,the environmental descriptions in the novel are obvious and are described vividly.Although this novel was criticized at an early stage,scholars in Western countries have never stopped the related studies.The Picture of Dorian Gray is also studied in a wide field and its Chinese versions culminated in the 1980 s at home.There are many scholars who have studied the literary characteristics and translation problems of this novel.But studies on the translation of environmental descriptions of this masterpiece from construal theory are rare.Construal put forward by Langacker refers to people's various ways on the same objective situation.It focuses on cognitive subject's experience in objective things,and cognition is an inseparable part in this theory.As a cognitive activity,translation cannot leave links of understandings and expressions.Besides,the cognitive efforts of translators are key to an excellent translation.This thesis chooses two Chinese versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray that were published in 1984 and 2017 respectively.These two versions are studied from the four dimensions of construal theory,including scope and background,perspective,prominence and specificity.What's more,this thesis aims to explore the two translators' construal ways and the effects of their construals on selections of translation strategies or methods.Finally,translation expressions are discussed upon translators' reconstructions.Through the research,this thesis finds out that the construal ways of the original author and translators are different.Meanwhile,different translators have various construal ways on the same situation because of the operations on four dimensions of construal.Translation strategies,methods and skills are showed as domestication,literal translation and annotation,literal translation,omission and amplification.In order to ensure the fidelity and fluency of the translation,the translator has to make transformations.All in all,in the process of translation,translators should take the semantic meaning,sociocultural backgrounds,and the context into consideration.This thesis hopes to provide some references for the translation of environmental descriptions in literary works.