| As foreign exchanges have become increasingly frequent, the role of translation in the cross-cultural communication become increasingly important. However, different language has its unique cultural connotation. In order to span this barrier of cultural differences, and bond the target language and the source language, the translators have attempted many ways, and concluded many translation strategics. Among them domestication and foreignization, as two corresponding concepts, have become a heated topic in the field of translation. Which strategy should be used in translation become important topic during intercultural communication and exchange. Both domestication and foreignization are translation strategies, but they are quite different. Domestication is target culture directed, strives to make the author move to the readers, and uses the target language and the way of expression which is easy for the readers to accept. Fluency and naturalness of the text is what domestication focuses on. Foreignization is source language and culture oriented. It tries to reproduce the original color and style, strives to make the readers move to the author, and keeps the foreignness of the source culture. During translating, domestication and foreignization not only guide sign language transfer just at the linguistic level but also guide the cultural information transfer at the culture level.Li Bai’s poems have been wonderful works in the Chinese classical Poetry. In the past one hundred years, many translators have translated Li Bai’s poems into English, so different translated versions are enumerated, and studies on Li Bai’s poetry translation never stop. However, at present there is no unified and recognized poetry translation standard to measure the use of the strategies in the translation of poetry. Therefore, this thesis has focused on the application of domestication and foreignization in poetry translation under the guidance of the framework of the Skopos theory taking the translations of Li Bai’s poems as examples.This thesis first emphasizes the objective of the present research, the necessity and significance of the research, methodology of the research and so on. And then it reviews the domestic and foreign studies on domestication and foreignization, studies the history of Li Bai’s poetry translation and reviews the development of the Skopos theory. After that the thesis presents the theoretical bases of this article: knowledge about the Skopos theory, domestication and foreignization. This thesis also compares different translation versions of Li Bai’s poems to analyze the use of domestication and Foreignization in literary translations. Last but not least, some merits of foreignization are testified from the view of the Skopos theory. In the end, the author gets the result that most translators prefer foreignization in the translation of literary works such as Li Bai’s poems in order to spreading Chinese cultures around the world. This thesis advocates that we must first establish the target of translation. In general, translators should adopt different translation methods based on different translation purposes. Translators should pick translation strategies with the purpose of maintaining the source culture connotation as much as possible in the cultural translation, that is, foerignization is a better choice in the cultural translation.The specific contents are as follows:The first chapter introduces the setting and purpose of the research (to study which translation strategy is more suitable for the translation of Li Bai’s poems to better promote Chinese culture under the outline of Skopos). The importance of this study, research questions (1. How does the translators choose the translation skills under the conduct of Skopos?2. Which translation strategy should be adopted in translating Li Bai’s poems in cultural translation?), research methods (primarily theoretical studies and examples of analysis), and finally shows the structure of this thesis.The second chapter reviews the previous researches on domestication and foreignization and the Skopos theory as well as the status of Li Bai’s poetry translation research.The third chapter describes the theoretical framework of this thesis. First, this thesis presents the introduction of domestication and foreignization. And later introduces the representatives and their respective claims on domestication and foreignization (Nida is the representative of domestication, and Lawrence Venuti stands for foreignization). After that a simple analysis of the merits and demerits of domestication and foreignization is made. Secondly, the basic concept of Skopos, the three rules of the Skopos theory, and the analysis of domestication and foreignization under the framework of the Skopos theory are presented.The fourth chapter analyzes domestication and foreignization in the two representatives of Li Bai’s poem Chang Gan Xing (《长干行》). This thesis selects two different versions of the translation of Chang Gan Xing (《长干行》), among which one version adopts domestication translation strategy, while the other one uses foreignization translation strategy. After making a comparative analysis of these two versions, this thesis finds that foreignization strategy can better convey traditional Chinese cultural elements in Li Bai’s poems to the West. Then this chapter testifies two advantages of foreignization under the framework of the Skopos theory through Li Bai’s poems Song Meng Haoran Zhi Guang Ling (《送孟浩然之广陵》) and Song You Ren (《送友人》); that is, foreignization achieves the Skopos of cultural translation, and it better conforms to the fidelity rule of the Skopos theory.Chapter five summarizes what have been discussed above, and reaches to the conclusion that foreignization strategy is more effective in cultural translation under the purpose of spreading the Chinese culture to the West. This chapter also points out the limitations of this thesis, and makes some recommendations for the future research in this area. |
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