Interpretation Of Culture-specific Items From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory: A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of Nahan

Functionalists consider translation as an intentional cross cultural interaction. According to Skopos theory, the translation skopos determines translation strategies and the production of any translation is conditioned by many factors. Correspondingly,"adequacy"is taken as the criterion of translation which refers to the qualities of a target text with regard to the translation brief. This is what Skopos theory holds.This thesis takes Skopos theory as the main theoretical guidance and the two English versions of Lu Xun's Nahan, One is translated by the Yangs as Call to Arms and the other is translated by Lyell as Diary of a Madman and Other Stories,as the case to study Culture-Specific Items (abbreviated for CSIs ) from the cross cultural perspective. It focuses heavily upon the application of the Skopos theory to the study of CSIs. The cultural analysis is conducted within the framework of the following five culture categories: ecology, linguistic culture, religious culture, material culture and social culture. After the comparative study, the conclusions can be obtained that translation skopos determines the choice of strategies and if ultimate goal of translation is to realize the cross-cultural communication, sometimes different translators may use various translation methods to achieve the goal—good transference of the cultural information.There are three parts in this thesis besides an introduction and a conclusion. The first part is an overview of Skopos theory, including the following two aspects: the rise and the development of the Skopos theory, basic concept and rules of Skopos theory.The second part introduces Culture-specific Items and factors influencing their translation strategy.Based on Skopos theory, the third part is a comparative study of the two versions in terms of CSIs and then a general and rational evaluation of the two versions is also presented.In short, this dissertation attempts to analyze examples of CSIs in the literal works. In the study of the two versions and translators'translation strategies, it tends to highlight the advantages of Skopos theory in guiding literature translation, which provides feasible translation strategy for cultural translation and enlightens China's cultural transmission.