A Comparative Study Of Two Translation Versions Of Moment In Peking From The Perspective Of German Functionalism

In current translation study, literary translation is no longer confined in traditional study between source text and target text, but becomes a study of other translation factors. This paper attempts to apply Skopos theory-the core theory of German Functionalist Approaches to the translation criticism of two literary translation versions, with the purpose that functionalism is also applicable to literary translation. The paper has introduced and analyzed the main theories and principles of functionalist approaches, and applied them to the comparative analysis of two prestigious Chinese translation versions of Mr. Lin Yutang's well-known English novel Moment in Peking. As a result, translation strategies and criteria of literary translation were evaluated from a new study perspective.The paper is composed of six chapters. Chapter 2 introduces the writer, translators, writing skopos, translation background and other translation factors. Chapter 3 goes over the German functionalism since 1970s. More stress is put on its application to literary translation from Nord's view. Chapter 4 applies the coherence rule and adequacy in skopos theory to the comparative analysis of Moment in Peking's two Chinese translation versions, from a linguistic perspective. After analyzing some typical examples, the author summarized the two versions' translation features in language, which are: the language of Zhang's version is natural and fluent but somehow pale in cultural translation; Yu's version is better than Zhang in cultural translation but with more linguistic problems. According to functionalism, chapter 5 conducts comparative analyses on the influence of non-linguistic factors and their indications in the two Chinese translation versions of Moment in Peking. This chapter analyzes the text effect of the two versions from the perspective of several non-linguistic factors, and tries to seek the reason behind the translator's decision making. Consequently, a conclusion that a translator's strategy should be made based on the balance of all factors is drawn. In chapter 6, the author draws the final conclusion that German functionalist translation theory is also applicable to literary translation and translation criticism. Meanwhile, to fulfill Mr. Lin Yutang's wish and meet Chinese readers' expectation, the author proposes that a new Chinese translation version of Moment in Peking should be done on the basis of predecessor's research findings by the translator, who has good command on Peking dialect.Functionalism broke the restriction of traditional equivalence theory. It takes text, participants, target environment and other factors into the study system. This theory meets the development demand of translation criticism, with more realistic instructive meaning to translation practice. Certainly, any translation theory has limitation with no exception of functionalism. In the application of functionalism to the comparative study of the two Chinese translation versions, the author, in critical and objective attitude, tries to deep(?)n its positive contributions and reduce the negative effect caused by its limitation.