Contextual Adaptation:A Study On The Translation Of Culture-loaded Terms In Big Breasts And Wide Hips

Translation activities cannot be carried out without adapting to context,for which decides the meaning of language and the successful communication between cultures.Different languages have formed their own unique contextual conditions due to distinct geographical environments,religious beliefs,customs and other complex factors,which can easily become obstacles causing communicative failure,so translators’ linguistic understanding and generation are constantly bounded by various contextual conditions.Verschueren emphasizes the importance of context,especially the communicative contextual factors that influence the language production in his Adaptation Theory.Such contextual factors related to communication not only provide a new perspective,but also an effective and operative basis in the translation of culture-loaded terms.The numerous culture-loaded terms in Big Breasts and Wide Hips,the most representative work of Mo Yan,represent the most profound and long-standing cultural heritage of China,and the publication of English version translated by Goldblatt has largely contributed to a boom in the study of Chinese culture in other countries.So far,some scholars have studied the culture-loaded terms in the novel from several perspectives such as Relevance,Skopos Theory,and Eco-translatology,but these studies all seem to pay much attention to concluding the appropriate strategies and approaches in final translation products with less attention paid to the importance of context in translating culture-loaded terms.Although some scholars applying adaptation theory to analyze the text,these studies mostly focus on the whole text and discourse analysis of characters,and few of them take the contextual adaptation as a core,which inevitably ignore the priority of context in translation studies.Taking the communicative contextual adaptation as the core concept,the thesis explores Howard Goldblatt’s adaptation choices in translating culture-loaded terms in Big Breasts and Wide Hips under the physical,social and mental worlds respectively.It is found that the contextual adaptation provides an effective perspective to explore culture-loaded terms translation.Howard Goldblatt’s version provides the successful case of considering contextual factors in both generation and dissemination of culture-loaded terms and making corresponding adaptation choices.It is true that he always takes contextual factors as his priority in translating culture-loaded terms to achieve communicative effectiveness.First of all,his adaptation choices are generally based on the reader’s acceptance,and he also makes specific adaptation choices to convey Chinese culture within a reasonable range.Furthermore,Goldblatt makes different adaptations based on disparate communicative subjects and function.At last,his adaptation choices are not made fixed once for all,but a dynamic and flexible one complying with the contextual factors,which reflects his salience of awareness.