Studies On Fu Donghua's Translation Of Gone With The Wind From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Fu Donghua, a famous translator born in Zhejiang Province, is the first one who introduces the novel Gone with the Wind to China. Since his translation was first published in 1940, it received both high praise from the massive Chinese readers and severe criticism from other translators and scholars. Such a paradoxical phenomenon makes him a controversial translator in the Chinese translation field. Studies on Fu Donghua's translation of Gone with the Wind have lasted for several decades. Since his translation was published, scholars have tried to give Fu Donghua and his translation a proper position in the Chinese translation field. With the development of translation theories both at home and abroad, the previous studies can fall into the six categories: rewriting theory, domestication and foreignization, culture, functional approach, hermeneutics and translation norms. However, in these studies the analyses of Fu Donghua and his translation are still far from comprehensive and objective.This thesis attempts to study Fu Donghua's translation of Gone with the Wind from the perspective of Skopostheorie proposed by Hans Vermeer, who thinks that translation is not only a kind of transfer, but also a kind of human action with specific purpose. According to Skopostheorie, we can distinguish the three kinds of purpose in the translation field. They are the general purpose of the author, the communicative purpose of the target text and the purpose of choosing a particular translation strategy or procedure. Besides, translation methods and strategies should be determined by the intended purpose or the function of the target text. In Skopostheorie, there are three translation rules, namely, Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule, and the standard for translation is no longer equivalence but adequacy.Besides Introduction and Conclusion, this thesis consists of four chapters. Chapter One is the general introduction of Fu Donghua as a translator, including his life stories, translation activities and his viewpoints on translation. In Chapter Two, previous studies on Fu Donghua's translation of Gone with the Wind are reviewed from six perspectives. In Chapter Three, Skopostheorie, the theoretical framework, is introduced from three aspects -- representatives of the German School and their standpoints, basic viewpoints of Skopostheorie, and the influence of Skopostheorie on translation studies. In Chapter Four, it focuses, in detail, on the purposes of Fu Donghua's translating and the evaluation of his translation. On the basis of Skopostheorie, the present author attempts to find out the three kinds of purpose as revealed in Fu Donghua's translation of Gone with the Wind and evaluate his translation from three translation rules and the translation standard of adequacy.By analyzing the preface to Fu Donghua's version, this thesis sorts out five reasons of his translating the novel, the influence of his translation and the reasons for his choosing specific translation strategies. With the help of the figures and examples, this thesis comes to the conclusion that Fu Donghua's translation does not violate the three rules in Skopostheorie and fulfills the communicative function in Chinese situation and Chinese culture. His translation has a positive effect on the translation field in China, and he should be rightly evaluated.