The poetics of recontextualization: Intertextuality in a Chinese adaptive translation of The Picture of Dorian Gray

This article presents information on the poetics of recontexualization. The reader of a translation is most likely to be aided by his/her knowledge of, on the one hand, the source-system in which the text has its root, and on the other, the target system into which it is introduced. These two systems together provide virtually all the parameters needed for understanding to take place. The reader's degree of acquaintance with the two systems will inevitably determine the facility with which s/he interprets the translated text, as well as the possibility of his/her coming to more reliable - if not more correct - interpretations.