The Study On Translation Strategies In Wolf Totem From The Perspective Of Functionalist Theory

“Wolf Totem”, written by Jiang Rong, is a long novel composed of a series of wolf stories. Itdescribes Chen Zhen, an intellectual’s living experience in the Olonbulag of Inner Mongolian during1960s and1970s. Mr Jiang’s vivid description of the natural wildness of the grassland, the review andcomparison between China’s farming and nomadic civilization, and the appreciation and respect to thespirit totem of nomadic groups in grassland endow Wolf Totem distintive cultural characteristics. With itsmass publication in April2004, it created a big stir in China. The English version of Wolf Totem wastranslated by Howard Goldblatt in200was awarded the Man Asian Literary Prize attributed toGoldblatt’s excellent translation. However,since the English version Wolf Totem has been introduced tothe world for only four years, few research has been done on analyzing the translated work from culturalperspectives. Enlightened by this idea,this thesis intends to put the study of translation of Jiang Rong’sWolf Totem into a larger and broader context. Based on functionalist theory, the author explores theinfluences and manipulations of translation skopos and translation brief on Howard Goldblatt’s selectionand translation of Wolf Totem.The functionalist theory emerged in German in1970s, and quickly developed into a new translationtheory. According to functionalist theory, translation is a purposeful and intentional human action, thepurpose of translation determines the translation strategies employed in a specific translation. Within theframework of the theory, equivalence, an aged yardstick of a translation, is replaced by adequacy.Guided by this new assessment criterion, the translator can turn to foreignization and domestication.Meanwhile, the process of translation should obey the skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule.Within the framework of functionalist theory, this thesis makes an analysis of translation strategiesof cultural elements and exploration for the reasons affecting Goldblatt’s choice, and then conductsfurther studies from five perspectives: ecological, material, social, religious and linguistic culture. Theauthor of this thesis selects104examples totally, including17examples of ecological culture,12examples of material culture,27examples of social culture,16examples of religious culture and32examples of linguistic culture. Through detailed analysis and statistics, during his translation ofecological, social, religious and linguistic culture, the translator is inclined to adopt foreignization totransmit Mongolian and Chinese culture and promote cultural communication. However, as there aremany unique articles with Mongolian and Chinese characteristics, it is very difficult to find anequivalent expression in English, so domestication is used. In this thesis, the first part gives the background, significance of the research, research questionsand research methods. Part two introduces two versions of Wolf Totem and the basic information of theoriginal author and the translator. Part three defines the key term——translation strategy and introducesthe theoretical framework, functionalist theory and its application in literary translation. Part four is thecase study of Wolf Totem and the translation strategies adopted by Goldblatt. Part five is the conclusion,through detailed analysis and statistics, the author finds that Goldblatt prefers foreignization todomestication, which is determined by the translation purpose. Chief findings, limitations andsuggestions for further study would also be provided in this part.Howard Goldblatt, as the chief translator of Modern Chinese literature translation, sets a goodexample for other translators to choose appropriate translation strategies to transmit Chinese literatureand promote cultural communication.