On The Translation Of Chinese Neologisms Into English From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With the rapid development of economy and technology, more and moreneologisms have come into common use in our daily life. As China plays a more andmore important role in the international exchange, a great number of foreigners fromall over the world pour into the boom of learning Chinese. Therefore, in order tocommunicate smoothly with other countries in the world, and help foreignersunderstand China well, more attention should be poured into C-E translation ofneologisms. However, the study of this field has been greatly neglected. As for theirtranslation for foreign audience, most related works and papers concentrate on how totranslate, hence propose translation methods and set down principles for translators toabide by. And some just give ready-made English translations for certain neologisms,but do not provide a systematic translation theory. They fail to recognize the linkbetween Chinese neologism translation and the motivation. So in the present thesis,the author applies skopostheorie and makes a tentative study on Chinese neologismtranslation. Based on skopostheorie, the thesis employs a great number of exampleswith the method of induction as a supportive ground for the main arguments of thethesis, and makes a scientific and systematic study, aiming at establishing somefeasible translating principles and strategies for the C-E translation of neologisms.Under the guidance of skopostheorie, the author summed up two main purposesfor Chinese neologism translation: to make target readers understand the ST easily aswell as promulgate Chinese culture. For the first purpose, domesticating transltionstrategy, including free translation, explanatory translation/interpretative translation,back translation, creation of new words according to word formation is adopted. Andfor the second purpose, foreignizing translation strategy including literal translation,annotation, transliteration (add explanation when necessary) is applied. Besides, theauthor also deals with some situations that both domesticating and foreignizing translation strategies are involved, especially for the same word with differenttranslation methods(一词多译).Based on the above study, the author concludes that skopostheorie is verypractical for the translation of Chinese neologisms. Under the guidance ofskopostheorie, translators should bear in mind the purpose of translation: If they wantto propagate Chinese culture, especially for Chinese culture-loaded neologisms,foreignizing translation strategy should be adopted. While, if they are inclined to puttarget readers’ response at the first place, especially some words borrowed fromwestern countries, domesticating translation is better.