2 Literature Review   

2。1 Definition and Features of Slang

Among the previous research, there are many definitions of slang。 Slang is the statement that is folk, informal and colloquial, which is full of the words that are concluded by people in their normal life and are characterized with local features (Cao, 2010)。 “Slang is a kind of jargon marked by its rejection of formal rules, its comparative freshness and its common ephemerality, and its marked use to claim solidarity (Spolsky & Bemard, 2000, p。 27)。” “俚(lí) in Chinese means vulgar and fescennine。 It is characterized with informality, which has difficulty ascending the place of refinement (Yan, 2012, p。 107)。” 

According to the American phonetician Flexner, the number of English words that an ordinary American knows is about ten to twenty thousand, among which 2000 are slang, which are frequently used in daily life。 There are many factors influencing the formation of slang。 Slang, as highly condensed language terms, clearly reflects the features of a nation’s culture, behind which are people’s thinking mode and code of language。 Various countries and nations are distinct from each other for different history backgrounds and social custom, forming their own cultural sources that constitute various value orientations, behavioral patterns, thinking modes, social regulations and logic of languages, which, in turn, have an influence on the formation of slang (Zhuang, 2014)。 Therefore, translating slang is not a very easy thing。 Instead, it is required to take some specific translation strategies when translating slang in Chinese countryside literature, which demands translators to take several elements into consideration, like cultural background, speech pattern and thinking mode。文献综述

2。2 Translation Variation Theory

    Translation Variation Theory is a kind of new translation theory, which was first proposed by Professor Huang Zhonglian in 1990s。 About its definition, its proposer Professor Huang Zhonglian (2012) claimed that Variation Theory is a kind of scientific principle that is summarized from variation practice and reflects the nature and rules of variation, which can be widely used in translation and interpretation。 The Variation Theory takes the four main elements into consideration: original content, translated content, translators and readers。 According to him, translation variation is a thought and extra-language activity that aims at reproducing the content of the original text by taking appropriate means of accomodation such as addition, omission, editing, condension, exposition combination and adaptation to meet the special needs of specific readers under special conditions。 The translator adopts different accomodation strategies according to different readers who have different requirements。 Translation variation is not a manipulation of the original in isolation, but a more subjective strategy considering the target culture and the target readers。