A Case Analysis Of The Chinese Translation Of Ross Terrill’s Mao: A Biography From The Perspective Of The Skopos Theory

Mao Zedong is a great Marxist in Chinese history.Terrill’s Mao:A Biography is one of the best-selling works of Mao’s biographies in the West.The book focuses on Mao’s personality and psychological analysis and describes his life from the perspective of ideology and politics.The translation and interpretation of Mao:A Biography has both historical and practical significance.The thesis selects Terrill’s 1999 revised version of Mao:A Biography and its 2010 Chinese version translated by He Yuguang and Liu Jiaying as the research objects.The author adopts the method of comparative analysis and makes a translation study on the Chinese version based on the three principles of the Skopos theory,namely,the principle of purpose,coherence and fidelity.Twenty-four examples including culture-loaded words,four-character words,locations,scenery description,character portrayal,plot depiction,poems and citations are selected.Then,a specific analysis of the examples is carried out to judge whether the Chinese translation follows the three principles.It is concluded that the Chinese translation conforms to the three principles.To be specific,the translation of culture-loaded words and translation into four-character words especially follows the principle of purpose,the translation of scenery description,character portrayal and plot depiction conforms more to the principle of coherence,and the translation of locations,poems and citation is more consistent with the principle of fidelity.This thesis has practical significance because it can be regarded as a paradigm for the analysis of Chinese translation of foreign biographical work.