A Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of Uncle Tom's Cabin From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

In the history of translation studies, traditional translation studies regard translation merely as a linguistic transmission between languages and give the top priority to"faithfulness"and"equivalence". They hold that the translator should cast off the interference of subjectivity and reproduce the source text objectively and faithfully. Traditional translation studies have focused on the comparison between the source text and the target text, taking"faithfulness"as the highest criterion. The positive aspect of traditional theories lies in that they attach importance to the objectivity of translation. However, as translation does not take place in a vacuum, translators are inevitably influenced by various factors during the course of translation. So it's unwise to narrowly use"equivalence"to assess the quality of translation.The present study of translation is no longer constrained by traditional equivalence-oriented translation theories. It takes more extra-textual factors into consideration. Skopos theory (Skopostheorie), developed from German Functionalist Approaches, holds that translation is a purposeful intercultural action; the reproduction of any translation is conditioned by many factors, and the skopos of the overall translation action determines the translation strategies. As a break with the equivalence-oriented linguistic translation theory, it places emphasis on the interaction of the intention of the original author and the translator and the target-text readers as well; it offers a dynamic and multi-dimensional perspective on translation studies.Based on the Skopos theory, the thesis attempts to make a comparative study of the two Chinese versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin in different phases of Chinese history and indicates that the translators adopt different translation strategies according to their different purposes and the two versions have different styles which lead to different effects. In general, the two versions are acceptable as they achieve the translation purpose and meet the expectation of readers at different times. Through the comparison, the author of the thesis concludes that the evaluation of translation based merely upon linguistic comparison between the original text and the target text is incomprehensive. Rather, influence of various factors such as translator, the target readers and the situation in the shaping of the translation should be given full consideration in the course of translation evaluation and judgment so as to make a more comprehensive and rational evaluation.