On Translation Of Figures' Names In O. Henry's Short Stories

Transliteration is often used in translating figures' names. Translators tend to search for corresponding words in Chinese according to their pronunciation or translate figures' names by consulting A Dictionary of Names. This way is successful in translating names to a certain degree. However, O. Henry shows his ingenuity in creating figures in low-middle class and naming these figures with cultural-loaded words, which give those names evocative and associative meanings. Some of these names bear the function of suggesting figures' fate and other names can represent the figures' social status and so on. Hence, sheer transliteration is unable to transmit the implied meaning of these figures' names.This research is based on the Skopos Theory, taking O. Henry's short stories, translated by Zhang Jinghao, as a case study. This thesis first gives a relatively comprehensive elucidation about the Skopos Theory and then makes a systematic classification of figures' names in O. Henry's short stories, that is, for suggestiveness, for irony and for symbol. After that this thesis makes a descriptive analysis on the translation purpose of Zhang Jinghao and a statistic study on the figures' names and their translations in O. Henry's short stories. The case study leads to the finding that Zhang Jinghao fails to make systematic research of translations of figures' names despite the adoption of some translation skills. So the implied meanings of these names are not transmitted to Chinese readers. In this sense, the translator's purpose in translating these figures' names fails to be accomplished. What's more, the figures' names in source language and target language fail to reach coherence in the aspect of intercourses. Therefore, the reasonability of the Chinese version of figures' names translation remains to be further discussed and studied.