On Translator's Style From The Perspective Of Functionalist Theory

The study of style is an important issue in literary translation studies. But the reproduction of the original style has long been the focus of the studies. Traditional translation theories, which are mostly source-text and source-text author oriented, always disregard translators'subjectivity and creativity; style demonstrated by translators in their translations is thus naturally overlooked, not to mention the adequate research on translators'style.In the 1970s, with the development of the culture turn, different schools of translation studies begin to realize the significance of translator in translation and attach unprecedented importance to their creativity and subjectivity. With that, translators'style gains increasing attention from the academic circle.With German functionalist theory as the main theoretical background, this thesis treats Mr. Fu Donghua's translation style as subject and attempts to explore what leads to the formation of his translation style. Mr. Fu Donghua is a famous literary translator in modern China. He is one among the earliest literary translators and has been influential in translation circle as early as 1930s. He is also a translator who publicly admits that he has his own unique style reflected in his translations and insists on it(Deng Di 337). Many of his translations like Gone with the Wind, Jennie Gerhardt are very popular with readers for their fluent and natural language and the style of translation. But the significance of his translations is not recognized for being criticized as catering to the readers too much by the academic circle. As a result, his translations are far from being objectively and comprehensively valued.Functionalist Theory originates from German with Vermeer's Skopos theory as its core theory. It regards translation as a purposeful human activity and thinks that the prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose of the overall translation action. Different purposes of different translators will determine translators'various selection of translation materials and translating strategies. Through choosing different types of works to translate and corresponding translating strategies, the translators strive to achieve his skopos. Whether the translator has achieved his skopos becomes the yardstick whether the translation is successful or not. At the same time, Functionalist theory also emphasizes the role played by target text addressees. It believes that target text addressees are very important to the translators; being a part of translation brief, it plays a decisive role in translation process (Zhong Weihe 48).By applying Functionalist Theory to the analysis of Fu Donghua's translation style, the thesis mainly aims at how his translation skopos and the target text addressees influence his choice of translation materials and translating strategies, which are elements of translator's style as defined in this thesis. Study of translator's style is a comparatively new topic in translation studies. According to this thesis, translator's style, starting with the translator's choice of source text and then going along with his choice of translating strategies and finally influencing the production of source text in the target language, manifests itself throughout the translating process. It is the same case with Mr. Fu Donghua's translation. Cultural and economic purposes exerted great influence on his translation. When cultural purpose played the dominant role, he tended to translate literature classics and poetry and his choice of translation strategies was relatively complex. Some of his translations were popular with readers while some others were disregarded. When economic purpose played the dominant role, he tended to translate popular novels and adopt domestication to cater to the readers'needs; nevertheless, most of his translations were successful.