The Dissemination And Development Of The Functionalist Skopos Theory In China

The Functionalist Skopos theory is an approach that emerged in Germany in the late1970s. Its influences have increased gradually over the world in the forty years since itwas brought up. The Functionalist Skopos theory caused an enormous reaction for itquestioned about the traditional source text oriented theory, focusing on the function ofthe target text, highlighting the translation purpose, and enlarging the scope of thetranslation study. The historical evolution of the Functionalist Skopos theory can bedivided into four stages: Katharina Reiss’ functional category of translation criticism,Hans J. Vermeer’s skopostheorie as the core theory of Functionalist approaches, and thenJusta Holz-M ntt ri went one step further and developed the theory of translational actionbased on the principles of action theory, Christiane Nord proposed the principle of“Function plus Loyalty” and turned skopostheorie from a universal model of translationtheory into an anti-universalist model.Since the Functionalist Skopos theory was introduced into China, Chinese scholarshave made great efforts in its studies and applications in China. This paper aims to give adetailed account of the disseminating process and development of the FunctionalistSkopos theory in China. It focuses on Chinese scholars’ applications and criticalreflections of this theory and attempts to summarize its influences on Chinese translationstudies, namely, provoking the multi-dimensional criteria of criticism, expanding thescope of the Chinese translation studies, promoting the translator’s subjectivity, and theinfluence on Chinese translation teaching.The Functionalist Skopos theory has experienced the processes of introduction,reception, application and criticism. On the basis of absorbing and learning from thistheory, Chinese scholars applied this theory into the studies of non-literary translation strategies, literary translation strategies, translation teaching and translation criticism.With views of better integrating the Functionalist Skopos theory to Chinese circumstances,domestic researchers make the best of their critical consciousness to reflect the limitationsof the theory and introspect the deficiencies during the development process. Through theresearch, it can be found that there are still some problems during the domestic study. Theresearch content is unitary, and there is substantial proportion of domestic researchlacking of comprehensive analysis of the theory itself. The research styles are imbalanced.For future research of the Functionalist Sokpos theory in China, the author suggests thatthe shortcomings of Functionalist Skopos theory should be further explored, as well as thefactors that influence translation skopos, and the effective ways of how to apply theFunctionalist Skopos theory into Chinese translation teaching need to be studied in depth.