| Traditionally, "fidelity" has for long been highly respected as the first important criterion for literary translation. It has often been understood as the identity of the source text and the target text in terms of the linguistic form and style. In this regard, creativity and fidelity conflict with each other, while the translator's creativity is not encouraged. Bai Xianyong and his partner also set fidelity or faithfulness as a guiding principle for translating Taipei People. However, it is obvious that the linguistic form and even style of the English version of Taipei People are quite different from those of the ST, which reflects the two translators' subjectivity (visible intervention) and creativity. Here, the fidelity is no longer the linguistic form and style, but the spirit of the ST. This thesis is aimed at studying the translator's creativity embodied at lexical, syntactical and textual levels in the bilingual edition of Taipei People (particularly "A Winter Night", one of the short stories in it) translated by Bai Xianyong and Patia E. M. Yasin in the light of the "German School" of functionalist translation theory, with a view to exploring the theoretical guidance to the said creativity in literary translation.This study demonstrates that on the one hand the translator's intervention and creativity do play an essential role in enriching the content of the target text (TT) and in the effective transmission of the ST spirit at different levels, but constrained by a good number of factors including the translator's bilingual ability, his or her understanding of the ST, the translation Skopos and various norms. On the other hand, if the translator ignores TT readers' feeling or TT purposes, the problem of "unfaithfulness" will occur. Therefore, the translator should be encouraged to exert his creativity effectively under the guidance of Skopostheorie. |
