On The Translation Strategies Of Culture-loaded Words From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The Skopos theory was originated in German in 1970s, and then it gradually developed into new translation theory. In the past decades, many translation theorists and scholars have studied the Skopos theory, and have made great contributions. The Skopos theory proposes the three rules:the Skopos rule and the coherence rule and the fidelity rule. According to the principles of the Skopos rule, the purpose and function of translation play an important role in translation studies. Therefore, under the guideline of the Skopos theory, there are no full equivalences between the source texts and the target texts, due to the different purposes of translation. Even the same original texts can be translated into different translation texts.Lang Tu Teng was written by Jiang Rong and published in China in April 2004. Based on his own experiences in Mongolia, it depicts a beautiful picture of the Mongolian wolves and the nomadic cultures. Wolf Totem is the English version translated by Howard Goldblatt. After its publication, it was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize. So far, there have appeared 26 translation versions, including English, French, Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Korean, and even Vietnamese.To transmit the culture, Howard Goldblatt vividly displays the nomadic cultures to the western readers. Because the ways the translators choose to deal with will effect cultural communication. This book is rich in Chinese culture-loaded words, which are usually the headache of translation. This thesis attempts to analyze the translation strategies of the Chinese culture-loaded words in Wolf Totem from the perspective of the Skopos theory.The thesis holds that in translating culture-loaded words, the translators must focus on the combination culture-loaded words with their cultural contexts, and adopt the proper skills and different strategies to ensure the culture communication smoothly. Foreignization and domestication are two contrary and complementary strategies that most translators employ in dealing with different culture-loaded words and expressions. Transliteration, literal translation, free translation, substitution, amplification and omission are the skills that most translators use in the process of culture transmitting. Then, the author comes to the conclusion:to deal with those words, Goldblatt adopts different translation strategies, smoothly enhancing the transmitting of the Mongolian cultures to the foreign readers.