Othello, written by Shakespeare in about 1603, is one of the four Shakespearean Tragedies and was initially performed in November 1st, 1604 at Whitehall Palace in London。 It involves several themes, including love and jealousy, credulousness and betrayal, miscegenation and so on。 The work was written in old English so it is not easy for most Chinese to appreciate it。 Consequently, weight should be attached to drama translation。

Eco-translatology, proposed by Chinese distinguished professor Hu Gengshen, is a research paradigm making a comprehensive survey on translation from the perspective of Eco-translatology。 The thesis is devoted to making a comprehensive survey and description on the whole translational eco-environment and translation theories themselves from the perspective of Eco-translatology。 Up to now, Eco-translatology has been applied into the translation of Chinese classics, subtitle, film titles, novels, signs and so on。 But few scholars have made a study of the translation of drama from the perspective of Eco-translatology。 Thus, this thesis will take the two Chinese versions of Othello as the research object to compare how adaptation and selection from linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions are achieved from the perspective of Eco-translatology。

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Previous Study on Eco-translatology论文网

With the wide spread of ecological thoughts around the world, a brand new theory of Eco-translatology appears which is also a reflection of economical society in the field of translation studies。 It is well-known that human society has shifted from industrial civilization to ecological civilization since the 1960s。 In 1962, a famous American marine biologist Rachel Carson published silent spring, with the sad truth of human beings damaging the environment to claim that people were on the turning point of pursuing ecological development。 In 1972, the United Nations convened an environment meeting and published the declaration of human environment, arousing people’s attention to the protection of natural environment。 China has also underlined the issue of ecological environment since 1970s and successively proposed Sustainable Development Strategy and Scientific Development Concept。 Besides that, China has recently proposed the point that human society has been experiencing the shift from industrial civilization to ecological civilization。 Against the background, the long-overlooked ecology is inevitably applied into various research fields including the study of translation and interpretation and thus Eco-translatology comes out。

Besides that, the appearance of ecology also stems from the transition of modern thoughts and philosophies。 In 1973, a famous Norwegian Ecological Philosopher proposed the theory of Deep Ecology to instill Ecology in the field of philosophy and ethics and proposed many important ideas such as ecological self, ecological equality, ecological co-existence and so on。 In 1995, American Ecological Philosopher David Griffin put forward an important concept of Eco-existence, manifesting the official publication of the philosophy of Eco-existence。 On October 22, 2001, Professor Hu held a lecture titled From the Darwinian Principle of Adaptation and Selection to Translation Studies, during which he depicted the motivation and feasibility of relying on the fundamental principles of Natural Selection to explore translation activities and put forward the initial configuration of constructing the Adaption and Election of Translation。 In the same year, Professor Hu published a paper named An Initial Exploration into an Approach to Translation as Adaption and Selection in the FTI THIRD ASIAN TRANSLATORS’ FORUM, which illustrated the relationship between the adaption and the selection of translators and made a new explanation about translation process, which initially established the basic structure of the Translation of Adaption and Selection。 In 2004, Professor Hu issued An Attempt in Translation Theory Study, From the Translator Subjectivity to Translator-centeredness, and The Philosophical Motivation of an Approach to Translation as Adaptation and Selection。 in which Professor Hu fully exposed Eco-translatology by explaining its background, source, development and study limitations。 In The First International Symposium on Eco-translatology held in Macao in 2010, Eco-translatology scholars had the first opportunity to assemble together to talk about Eco-translatology。 Since that, Eco-translatology has flourished around the world and aroused increasing discussion about it。 In Eco-translatology: Construction & Interpretation by professor Hu, he holds the opinion that the translation is a process of translators’ adaption and selection to the translational environment and that “multidimensional adaptation and adaptive selection” is the translation principle。 As for translation methods, three-dimensional transformation is the core of Eco-translatology。 Professor Hu thinks that a satisfactory translation can be realized by adopting translation adaption and selection from linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions。 Thus the thesis tries to work out the selective adaptation and adaptive selection from linguistic, cultural and communicative dimensions through a comparison of the two Chinese versions of Othello。