On The Translation Of Bestselling Novel From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

As a main embodiment of contemporary popular culture, the bestselling novel plays an important role in people's daily life. When people have no idea about which book to buy, the list can help them to make a decision, which shows that people is more likely to buy the bestselling novels. From this aspect the bestselling novel list has no difference with the list of pop music and hot movies. All of them have the referential value to the consumers and their judging standards lie in the circulation. Compared with other books, bestselling novel has its own characteristics. First of all, it is market-oriented; secondly, it must conform to the popular culture, the common people's culture; thirdly, it also should have some literariness. According to the first characteristic, the circulation of the book is very important. With the development of the global economy, as a kind of goods, the spread of books is no longer limited to a certain area or a certain country, but to serve the readers all round the world. A book in its own country is a bestselling novel, but things may be different in other countries with different cultures. How to solve this problem and make a certain bestselling novel be well accepted in other counties is an issue related with various aspects of translation.Since its publication in 2004 by the Changjiang Literature Press, Lang Tu Teng has been a great success and been listed as the top bestselling novel. As a special kind of bestselling novel, discussing the relationship among human, animals and nature, it has great differences with the nowadays mainstream bestselling novels which are mainly about love, sex, suspicion and so on. Its unique viewpoint, deep ideas and enormous circulation also attract the attention of the publication organizations aboard. By the end of 2005, sixteen countries and regions have signed the contract about the translation of Lang Tu Teng. In 2008, various versions of Lang Tu Teng were provided in the market for the readers, and the feedback shows that it is also popular among the foreign readers. Factually, the translation of Lang Tu Teng is rather a difficult job, because it has lots of records about Chinese history, cultural phenomena and people's concepts in certain period. Based on the English version of Lang Tu Teng, the author tries to analyze the formulating of translation methods, translation practice, the reasons of its great success. In this way, this thesis is supposed to provide some guidelines for the translation of Chinese bestselling novels and their successful entry into the global market.Through the systematic study and comparison of the Chinese and western translation theories, the author finds that the German functionalist theory is fit for guiding bestselling novel translation. The core theory of this translation school is "skopostheorie", which holds the idea that the decisive elements in deciding translation methods are the need of the target text readers, the communicative purpose of the translation, and so on. It subverted the traditional translation theory of "equivalence", which focused on the source text. With the help of action theory, "skopostheorie" thinks that translation is also a kind of action. People must have certain purpose when he acts. In this way, translation is a purposeful action. Action may happen in a certain environment, under a certain cultural background, so when people translate, they have to consider a lot of extra-textual factors besides intra-textual factors. Translation is not language to language transfer, but a kind of cultural communication. In addition, the translator should be faithful to the original writer, the source text and also the target readers. He must bear in mind the three basic rules when he translates. However, in the translation of Lang Tu Teng, things are more complicated. Not only should the translator consider the cultural factors, but the market and demands of publishers. The translator said that he has applied some translation methods in order to cater for the reading habits of the target readers, to spread Chinese cultures and gain the acceptance of the market. The great successes of the English and French versions of Lang Tu Teng also prove the appropriateness of skopostheorie' guidance towards the translation of bestselling novels.Within the theoretical framework of skopostheorie, firstly, the author symmetrically studies the characteristics of bestselling novels and the specialties of its translation. Then, the author roughly describes the history and development of functionalism, focusing on its core theory, and discusses how to apply it in the translation of bestselling novels. Thirdly, by a comparison between the Chinese and English versions of Lang Tu Teng and with lots of examples, the translation methods and practice are discussed. Finally, the conclusion are reached that skopostheorie is fit for the guidance of bestselling novel translation, in light of which bestselling novels can be better introduced abroad, and this will have deep influence on the spread of national literature.