A Report On The E-C Translation Of Elizabeth Jolley’s Novel Mr.Scobie’s Riddle(Excerpts P57-82)

The text selected for this translation practice is the novel Mr.Scobie’s Riddle written by Australian female writer Elizabeth Jolley,which is provided by the Australian Research Center of Mudanjiang Normal University.The novel focuses on Mr.Scobie Martin’ life,describes the miserable life of old people in the sanatorium,and criticizes the selfishness and indifference of people in the real world.The selected part mainly describes the daily life of the senior citizens who are not free in the sanatorium,the nurses’ mechanical handling of the work and even indifferent to the patients,and the hypocritical celebrations arranged by the sanatorium for the senior citizens at Christmas.The translation of dialogues among strange characters in the novel,the poker game process,hymns and Christmas song lyrics,sanatorium and external environment description are translation difficulties of this translation practice.Under the guidance of Adaptation Theory,the translator analyzes the text from four aspects: contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation processes.According to the Adaptation Theory,the process of language use is a process of constant language selection under different levels of consciousness based on internal and external facts of language.Therefore,the translator summarizes the translation methods used in the process of language selection,such as adding modal particles,choosing Chinese four-character idioms,choosing rhyming words,liberal translation,using rhetorical devices,etc.to illustrate the rationality and feasibility of Adaptation Theory in guiding literary translation.The application of Adaptation Theory in translation helps readers to understand the connotive meaning of works,deepen readers’ understanding of characters and plots,and provides references for literary translation.