The Study Of Cultural Presupposition In The Translation Of Chinese Literary Works

Cultural presupposition refers to cultural related background knowledge between speaker and hearer, or a system of culture-specific beliefs built upon and developed through the life experience of members from different communities.This thesis is a study of cultural presupposition based on functionalism from the perspective of Chinese to English translation in Chinese literary works. People produce many presuppositions to follow the principle of economy in communication. In communication between different languages, translation of different cultures is the very thing that bridges over the barrier of thoughts. Since translation is not only the interpretation of words and sentences but the transfer of two different cultures and ways of communication, it stresses the importance of transferring cultural presupposition in translation. For lack of it, an obstacle will appear for adequate comprehension.This thesis, which introduces Skopostheorie put forward by Vermeer in particular, discusses cultural presupposition in the translation of Chinese literary works. Through the study of different methods used in the translation of cultural presupposition and the evaluations of the translated versions under the guidance of skopostheorie and its three rules, conclusions are drawn that different strategies are of equal importance and should be emphasized differently according to the specific purpose of translation. In skopos end justifies the means. Thus, as long as the translated versions fully realize the purpose of translation and meet the expectation of target readers, they are considered as good translation. Besides, cultural presupposition, which has not been studied a lot before from the perspective of literature translation, should receive due attention from translators and should be carefully considered and handled according to specific contexts, cultures and the purposes of translation so as to increase the readability and acceptability when translate from one language into the other.