On Adequate Employment Of Foreignization And Domestication In Fortress Besieged: A Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Translation is a cross-cultural communication event,which concerns not only the transfer between two languages,but also the transfer between two cultures.Domestication and foreignization are two strategies often exploited in dealing with cultural factors.In translation,every translator always faces a choice between adhering to the SL-culture-oriented or TL-culture-oriented.Domestication and foreignization,or the matter of "leave the author in peace or leave the reader in peace" has been a controversy for a long time both at home and abroad.Fortress Besieged,the existing English translation of Weicheng, which is featured by its rich cultural information,achieved a great success with a warm welcome since it was published in 1979 by Indiana University Press.It was awarded one of "the most outstanding academic works" by the American Books Association from 1980 to 1981.The author believes that the success of its translation lies in the proper employment of the translation strategies of foreignization and domestication.According to skopos theory,"the ends justifies the means"(qtd.in Nord,2001:29),that is to say,the translators' skopos decides translation strategy,and the translation justifies the strategy, which is embodied in the English translation version of Fortress Besieged. It also provides a new perspective for justly viewing foreignization and domestication in literary translation.This paper is conducted by the author from the perspective of skopos theory in the aspect of culture transmission in the English translation.By applying the basic rules of skopos theory to the systematic and comparative study of cultural transmission,the author finds out the translation skills used by the translators to reach its translation purposes, namely,the dominant use of foreignization and the minor use of domestication.Through the introduction of Qian Zhongshu and Weicheng, the translators obtained its aims of broadcasting Chinese culture, facilitating culture interchange and meeting the readers' expectation of foreign flavor.The translation mainly uses the translation strategy of foreignization;Considering the TT reader's reading habit,certain domestication is also adopted,which embodies the proper employment of foreignization and domestication in the cultural transmission.Therefore, the thesis draws the conclusion:From the perspective of skopos theory, the translators of Fortress Besieged successfully employed the strategy of foreignization and domestication in culture transmission to a great extent. So we can't say that Fortress Besieged is not a success.