A Comparative Study Of English Translation Of Chinese Kinship Terms From The Angle Of Skopos Theory

The translation of Chinese kinship terms can never be taken as an easy job owing to the linguistic and cultural features of Chinese kinship term system. As a famous Chinese classic novel, Hongloumeng contains abundant Chinese kinship terms, and is regarded as a panorama of Chinese kinship terms. Therefore, the translation of Chinese kinship terms in Hongloumeng may be even more difficult.The skopos theory holds that translation is a form of intentional and intercultural action based on a source text. According to the viewpoint, the purpose of the translational action determines the translator's choice of strategies and affects the result of the translation. On this basis, the skopos theory further reveals that the prime principle determining any translating process is the purpose of the overall translational action. This theory has replaced "equivalence", an aged criterion to judge the quality of translation with "adequacy". Therefore, the skopos theory has provided a new perspective for translation studies as well as for translation criticism.The author of this thesis attempts to apply the skopos theory and make a comparative study of the two English versions of Hongloumeng in terms of Chinese kinship terms for parents and siblings by means of term frequency count and statistical analysis (one is translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang, and the other by David Hawkes and John Minford). Through a comparative study of the two English versions of Hongloumeng, the author finds that the translators of the two versions do their translations out of their own purposes, and then, the author tries to explore the influence of intended purposes on translators'choice of strategies in the respectively translating processes, and accordingly what effects of the translations are achieved. To be specific, the Yangs'version strives to maintain the linguistic and cultural features of Chinese kinship terms, while the Hawkes'version aims at making the translated text more understood and accepted by foreign readers. In order to achieve their respective purposes, the Yangs'version mainly resorts to foreignization while the Hawkes'version mainly adopts domestication. In this way, the two versions have different styles and achieve different effects. Generally, the two versions are adequate as they justify different translation purposes and accomplish the task of intercultural communication. However, there also exist some deficiencies that are mainly due to the practice of over-domestication and over-foreignization, and such deficiencies will affect the preservation of the original style and the transfer of the cultural information.In a word, the author of this thesis explores the intended purposes and strategies of the two versions on the basis of textual analysis, does some research into the application of the skops theory, and makes a rational evaluation on the translations of Chinese kinship terms in Hongloumeng from the perspective of the skopos theory.