A Study Of Pragmatic Translation From The Perspective Of The German Functionalist Theory

With the economic and social development after China's of reform and opening-up to outside world, pragmatic translation is playing a more and more important role as the bridge in international exchanges. With China's entry into WTO and 2008 Olympic Games held successfully as well as Shanghai World Expo 2010 to be held soon, the market of pragmatic translation is greatly enlarged and proper translation theories are needed to guide the translation practice.German Functionalist Translation Theory has provided us a solid basis of pragmatic translation. It holds that translation is a purposive behavior with which the target text is connected with source text and enables the intercultural communication to go on successfully. In order to realize specific translation purposes, amplification, internationally-oriented translation, and lessened translation can be adopted. All translation strategies are determined by different translation purposes.This paper, under the guidance of German Functionalist Translation Theory, expounds the types and usages of the pragmatic translation texts and classifies pragmatic translation into vocative texts, informational texts and expressive texts. Then from the perspective of Skopos Theory -the key of Functionalist Translation Theory as well as the principle of faithfulness, the paper analyzes different translation strategies and criteria according to different functional texts with examples from scientific and technological English texts, commercial texts, legal texts, advertising texts, enterprise introductory texts and teaching texts.