Herbert Allen Giles' Rendition Of Liaozhai Tales--Viewed From A Functional Perspective

This thesis is an analysis of Herbert Allen Giles' rendition of the Liaozhai Tales within the framework of the functionalist translation theory-the Skopostheorie. The Skopostheorie maintains that the translation process should be guided by the purpose of the translation, and the criterion for judging the quality of a translation is "adequacy" instead of "equivalence". Examples taken from Giles' rendition are first categorized in accordance with the five subsystems of culture (material culture, social culture, ideological culture, art and language culture) and then analyzed in the light of the Skopostheorie. For each original text, another translation is provided for comparison with Giles' rendition. The translations given for comparison are either selected from other English versions of Liaozhai Tales or translated by myself. Carefully chosen or tailored, they show how an adequate translation can fulfill the translation Skopos-culture dissemination in this case. Through comparison, we can see more clearly whether, and to what extent, Giles' translation is adequate for his Skopos. The research findings show that Giles did not use the same translation strategy throughout the book. In other words, his translation is not consistently guided by his Skopos. He did have a clear Skopos-to disseminate Chinese culture- but the way he handled many of the specific sentences was questionable.