A Comparative Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of Ulysses

Translators have made great efforts to re-translate some of the world literary masterpieces, because these works are open to new insight for interpretation and new tips for conveying their aesthetic values in other languages. Ulysses, which is noted for stream of consciousness, a literary technique that presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur, is a landmark of modernist literature. Its unparallel uniqueness and great cultural values have posed a great challenge to the translators. By now, Chinese readers can get access to three versions of Ulysses. The version done by Xiao Qian and Wen Jieruo, his wife, was published in 1994 by Yilin Press. The second version completed by Jin Di was published in 1996 by People's Literature publishing House. The third version, Liu Xiangyu's version, published by Yanshan publishing House in 2004, is a new effort to convey the features of the "book from heaven". The present thesis aims at a contrastive study of the three Chinese versions of Ulysses, with focus on the new version done by Liu Xiangyu from perspective of Skopos theory.According to Skopos Theory, translation is an intentional, interpersonal, partly verbal intercultural interaction based on a source text. Compared with other two versions available, Liu Xiangyu's version displays distinctive features as a result of the translator's purpose and principle. This thesis attempts to explore the differences in terms of Skopos which underlies the three Chinese versions of Ulysses, in particular to find out the unique feature of Liu's version, from which some understanding of retranslation could be revealed. In comparison and contrastive study, examples of translation of the same text are documented and analyzed in the thesis. The thesis consists of five parts. The first chapter is a brief introduction of the background, objective, methodology and outline of the research. The second chapter is a literary review of previous studies carried out on the translation of Ulysses. Skopos Theory, the theoretical framework of this thesis, and its introduction into China is also reviewed. The third chapter is the major part of this paper. It contributes to compare the three Chinese versions from perspective of Skopos Theory. Besides, well-chosen examples are given to demonstrate this. The version of Liu Xiangyu is the mainly focus of analysis in this chapter. The fourth chapter is the implication derived from the result of chapter 3, including the feature of liu's version and his viewpoints about translating, as well as the value of re-translation of masterpiece. In the conclusion part, the author gives some insightful suggestion for further study of retranslation.