On The Applicability Of Skopos Theory Reflected In Gone With The Wind Translated By Fu Donghua

Gone with the Wind, written by an American writer Margaret Mitchell, is one of the world's bestsellers. Mr. Fu Donghua, a famous translator and writer of his time, was invited to translate the novel and his translation is the most influential and controversial. The criticism argues there are too much domestication and deletion in his translation. Most comments on his translation are without the guide of a systematic, scientific theoretic frame considering translation purpose, specific social-cultural background of China and requirement of Chinese readers.In 1970s Vermeer, a founder of functionalism, established skopos theory. As he maintains, translation process is determined by prospective skopos prescribed by the initiator but restrained by target text readers, their situation and the cultural background. Skopos theory is the core theory of functionalism, which is a kind of translation viewpoint that considers translation as a purposeful activity and focuses on the function or functions that the translation tends to achieved. It includes the skopos rule which is the guiding the coherence rule and the fidelity rule. It breaks out the equivalence of tranditional translation theory and widen the range of translation. It can be used to direct the translation practice universally. A translation is considered to be successful if it successfully achieves its purpose. But someone criticized that skopos theory can not applied to literary translation. The author of the thesis testifies the applicability of skopos theory by analyzing Gone with the Wind translated by Fu Donghua.This thesis consists of three parts. In the first part, the author outlines the development of functional approach, and then briefly presents the important theoretical bases, especially skopos theory seperately, which lays down the theoretical foundation of this thesis. In the second part, the author investigates Fu Donghua's translation purpose through study of affiliated elements, such as characteristics and intentions of the original work, and the Chinese readers' special needs. In the third part, by a proportion of analysis of examples from Fu Donghua's translation, the author demonstrates his means and strategies to realize three rules of skopos theory. Based on what have been discussed above, the author draws the conclusion: the historical background and the purpose determine Fu Donghua's way of translating. In his specific time, he succeeded in completing the prospective purpose of translation on the premise that he fulfilled his duty to the target side.Fu's translation is successful from the perspective of skopos theory. At last, an expected conclusion is drawn out that Vermeer's skopos theory is very valuable in translation study and can be used to direct literary translation, and undoubtedly it is applicable to translation practice.