Study On The Translation Of National Cultural Words From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Translation is the bridge connecting two different cultures. The appropriateness of translation is closely related to the accuracy in the transmission of culture. While doing translation concerning words with cultural backgrounds, one of the biggest problems the translator might encounter is the translation of national cultural words. Previous researches into words with cultural connotations were mostly based on the case study, and seldom categorized the national cultural words for a systematical study. In the book Dictionary of Chinese National Cultural Words by Wang Dechun, national cultural words were categorized into seven classes. But the author thinks that although the seven categories cover a wide range, there will always be repetitive words. Therefore, the author simplifies the classification into the following three:idioms, common sayings and general words. Then the author used the Skopos Theory as guidance and extracted32examples from My Country and My People as the source text and took the translation of these examples from the text translation by Huang Jiade as the translated text, by analyzing the beauty in Huang’s translation, the author intends to provide reference for the readers when they encounter problems concerning the translation of this kind of words.My Country and My People is Mr. Lin Yutang’s first works in English, In the book, he incisively and vividly portrays the image, temperament and feature of the Chinese. The book is highly praised by the English readers and even popular among the foreigners. The present study is conducted on the basis of the book. The thesis mainly consists of five parts. The first part mainly introduces the research status home and abroad, innovative points and the significance of the research. The second part mainly introduces the development, features and research status of Skopos Theory, as well as the definition and features of national cultural words. The third part mainly introduces Lin Yutang and his book My Country and My People and the translation version by Huang Jiade. The fourth part analyses and concludes the translation of national cultural words in My Country and My People by Huang Jiade and tells what’s good about the translation. The last part summarizes the major findings of this thesis, points out the shortcomings of the present study and makes some suggestions for the further study.