A Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of The Happy Prince From The Perspective Of Functional Translation Theory

With more and more economic and cultural exchanges between China and other countries,more and more foreign outstanding literary works have been introduced into China.A classic work usually has more than one Chinese version,and their responses vary.This paper chooses three different Chinese versions of The Happy Prince by Oscar Wilde,the master of Aestheticism as the research object,to make a comparative analysis from the perspective of the German Functional Translation Theory,hoping to offer some help to the present translation criticism and translation practice of foreign literary works.According to Functional Translation Theory,purpose is the priority of translation,and the theory values the multilateral relations among the original author,the translator and the target readers.There are four stages in its development: Katharina Reiss’ s Text Types and Translation Criticism Theory,Hans J.Vermeer’s Skopos,Justa Holz-Manttari’s Translator’s Action Theory,Christiane Nord’s Function Plus Loyalty Theory.In this paper,Functional Translation Theory is firstly applied as a tool of translation criticism to the comparative studies of several versions,and then to the translation practice as a guiding principle.Apart from that,it also puts forward the possibility of an ideal translation that could meet the specific purpose of each translation.The study is innovative in two ways.Firstly,it is to employ the Loyalty Principles and Translation Action Theory in the study on the top of the Skopos Theory in Functional Translation Theory;secondly,the object of this study turns to literary translation rather than non-literary texts.