A Comparative Translation Study Of The Religious Key Words In The Two Chinese Versions Of The Pilgrim's Progress

Translation, which is called cross-cultural activities, is indivisible with language and culture. Translation theories are developing and changing all the time. The standards of translation vary under different social backgrounds. The field of translation study is transferring from the author, the source text, the translator to target readers. Translation no longer focuses on methods but on purpose. Rather than limited on debates between literal translation and free translation, and domestication and foreignization, translation is paying more attention to target readership, which has long since been neglected. This translation concept emphasizes the readers' reception to the source text and suggests various translation versions to meet the demand of different readers. And with this concept, translation theory is no longer author-centered, translator-centered or text-centered, but reader-centered.This thesis discussed the role that the target readers play in the two Chinese versions of The Pilgrim s Progress with Skopostheorie and Reception Aesthetics. This novel rich in western culture is both a famous literary work and a Christian spiritual book, in which what is described is mostly concerned with or borrowed from The Bible, thus producing a great influence on the western culture. This novel has been published for more than 300 years, and been translated in different languages and versions ever since. And now it still shares great popularity among readers of different ages and cultures. However, the study of this book seems far from enough and leaves enough blank space for research.This thesis analyzed its two typical Chinese versions: one is for Christians, the other is for non-Christians, to see how different and why so different they are from each other in language, style and strategy.This thesis is composed of five parts.Chapter One reviews some important translation theories and gives a brief introduction to readership.Chapter Two illustrates four translation theories: skopostheorie, reception aesthetics, culture and target readership. The thesis talks about the definition, development, characteristics and principles of skopostheorie. As for reception theory, the writer discusses the nature of translation, the introduction of the theory, the relationship with translation and types of target readers; the concepts of culture, the relationships between culture and language, culture and translation, culture and communication, translating as an intercultural communication, the target text and the "cultural turn", the cultural factors in The Pilgrim's Progress. Target readership embodies the producer and the receptor, the readers' vertical reception and horizontal reception. It concludes that translating is target-language-readers-oriented.Chapter Three is a detailed introduction of not only The Pilgrim's Progress, and its author's social background, but also the translators and their backgrounds and so on so forth.Chapter Four is devoted to an analysis of the two Chinese versions. It first talks about religion and then compares the two versions from the following three aspects, namely: biblical images like trinity, angel and devil; biblical scenes like heaven and hell; religious terms like sin and cross.Chapter Five summarizes the whole thesis, admitting its disadvantages and putting forward some suggestions for future study of The Pilgrim's Progress and its translation.