A Study On Translation Strategies In Chinese Versions Of Pride And Prejudice

It is widely acknowledged that literary translation is quite difficult due to thecultural barriers. This thesis takes the famous novel Pride and Prejudice and itsChinese versions for example to explore the cultural barriers in literary translation andresearch the corresponding translation strategies. Translation is not only to translatelanguages, but also the research on the cultural interaction. Translation has beenstudied with the help of theories of linguistics for a long time, which leads to hugedifference between translation theory and practice. Translators were urgent neeed tofind a new translation theory to guide their work. The translators had freed themselvesfrom the bound of the source language in the light of Skopos Theory proposed byVermeer.Based on the close relationships among the language, culture and translation, thisthesis introduces the standards of literary translation. Skopos Theory helps to dealwith the disjointing of translation theory and practice. Taking Pride and Prejudice forexample, influenced by the author’s gender, growing environment and socialbackground, the novel reflects a typical British culture that differs greatly fromChinese culture. Cultural difference is one of the main barriers which trouble thetranslators. On the research of Chinese version of Pride and Prejudice with theguidance of Skopos Theory, this thesis draws the following conclusions: translatorsshould choose proper translation strategies to deal with the cultural barriers in foreignculture works according to the requirement of intended readers. Wang Keyi andZhang Jinghao hold that translation works should correspond with the target languagefor a better understanding of the readers, while Sun Zhili thinks translation shouldkeep the cultural characteristics of the source language as much as possible to makethe target readers have a better understanding of Western culture. Different readerscause the different translation styles. But if there is too much domestication in literarytranslation, it makes the translation seem nondescript; if there is much foreignization,it makes the work too difficult to understand. So this thesis proposes that translators should mainly use foreignization adding to domestication, which can keep the style ofthe original work as well as make the content easy to understand.This thesis is going to find out translation strategies which fit for culture barriersby researching Pride and Prejudice. Skopos theory is one of the most prevailingtheories in translation studies, which has been widely employed in translating sourcetext of varies styles. This thesis takes Pride and Prejudice for example by analyzingits Chinese versions, suggesting that the translators should mainly consider theforeignization and together with the domestication in the process of translating whichkeeps the text style of original.