A Study On The Translation Strategies Of Culture-loaded Words From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With the development of globalization,the exchanges between countries have become increasingly closer.More and more Western readers are trying to learn about Chinese culture,and literary translation has received great welcomes and attentions.Pow!,a famed long-length novel,is one of the works written by the Chinese magic realist writer Mo Yan.He is one of the representative writers of local literature who is renowned all over the world.In 2012,Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in literature,which lifted a frenzy for studying his works.Pow! is written with the background of Mo Yan’s hometown Gaomi,Shangdong Province.This novel carries rich folk cultures,which demonstrates the Chinese cultural background and national characteristics.Culture-loaded words closely connect culture with language.When translating those words,the translator usually can’t find out their equivalents in the target language system.Therefore,its translation has gradually become concerned.Skopostheorie is the core theory of German functional school.According to Skopostheorie,translation is a purposeful activity,and a translational action is decided by skopos.In addition,translation should be conducted in accordance with three main rules:skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule.The translator can adopt proper translation strategies to achieve his or her translation purpose.Different from the traditional translation theories,Skopostheorie breaks the bondage of equivalence,thus providing an entirely new perspective for the translation study.The thesis focuses on the translation strategies of culture-loaded words in Pow!under the guidance of Skopostheorie.Representative culture-loaded words in Pow! are counted and 493 words are divided into five categories such as ecological,social,material,religious and linguistic aspects according to Nida’s classification of culture.The thesis selects typical examples for evaluation.Through analysis,the author finds out that when translating those culture-loaded words in Pow!,the translator Howard Godlbatt mainly adopts free translation which belongs to the translation strategy of domestication.Next,literal translation that belongs to foreignizaion ranks second.Then,Goldblatt flexibly uses the combination of the two translation methods.Besides,he also adopts paraphrasing,transliteration as well as substitution.In different contexts,Goldblatt employs proper translation strategies in accordance with different translation purposes.With the findings of this study,the author hopes to make due contributions to the research on translating culture-loaded words.