On The E-c Translation Of Cosmetic Instructions: A Skopos-theoretic Perspective

With the strengthening of the opening-up policy, the communication between China and the rest part of the world is becoming more and more frequent. Owing to the rapid growth of international trade, various of cosmetics have flooded into the domestic market. Meanwhile, with the development of Chinese society, the living standard of Chinese people has improved a lot. As people focus more on their appearance, foreign cosmetics which has a long history and enjoy good reputation is a good choice for them. Consumers who are not good at English are troubled by how to figure out the information of the foreign products. At the same time, how to attract the potential consumers and even arouse consumers' interest about the products is a chief issue for the manufacturers. As a special kind of "bridge" between consumers and the manufacturers, cosmetic instructions play a significant role. A well-translated instruction which can provide detailed information about products will work as an advertisement that gives the audience aesthetic appealing and inspire consumers'purchasing desire to buy the products. Therefore, cosmetic companies are paying more attention on the translation of cosmetic instructions.However, as a part of translation, the translation of cosmetic instructions at home does not have the attention it deserves in China. The quality of the translation of cosmetic instructions is far from satisfactory.This thesis tries to apply the Skopostheorie of the Functionalist approach to the English to Chinese translation of cosmetic instructions. The Skopostheorie, on the one hand, frees translation from the confinement of source text; on the other hand, it provides translation, especially the translation of pragmatic texts, with a new perspective. According to the Skopostheorie, the translators are encouraged to make the most of the information of the source text and are free to choose whatever translation strategies appropriate to achieve the functions of the translation. That is "the end justifies the means". The Skopostheorie consists of three rules, namely, the Skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule, in that order in the terms of importance. The three rules release translators from the dilemmas of literal translation vs. free translation, domestics vs. foreignizing etc., and give translators the right to choose proper translation methods according to their translation purposes. This thesis confines the study on the English-Chinese translation of cosmetic instructions and analyzes the translating approaches from the perspective of the Skopostheorie. This theory, together with the features and the functions of the cosmetic instructions, provides some guidance to the translation of cosmetic instructions.The thesis is made up of three chapters. Chapter one studies the cosmetic instructions and its translation, further researches into definition and functions and linguistic features of cosmetic instructions and then analyzes some errors and problems in the present translation of the cosmetic instructions. Chapter two mainly discusses the theoretical framework of Functionalist Translation Theory:Skopostheorie. It concretely elaborates the background and development of Functionalist Translation Theory and basic rules of Skopostheorie. Chapter three explores the specific translation approaches on how to apply Skopostheorie to the Chinese translation of cosmetic instructions. Then, it comes to the conclusion that it is useful to apply the Skopostheorie into the translation of the cosmetic instructions.