A Study Of The Translation Of Pygmalion From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Drama, as a unique artistic form, has always been deeply beloved by audience at home and abroad. With the development of translation undertakings, more and more foreign dramas are introduced to Chinese drama funs through translation, among which, Ying Ruocheng’s drama translation is well known for its performability. However, drama, as a special literary style, the readability of drama translation is ignored by more and more people.Bernard Shaw is a British playwright, whose productivity and importance in the history of British drama is considered only next to Shakespeare. His most appealing drama Pygmalion has been translated into multiple languages since it is published. The film version of Pygmalion, My Fair Lady won the Oscar Award Academy. In1956, on the occasion of100th anniversary of Shaw’s birth, People’s Literature Publishing House published the translation of collected works of Bernard Shaw, among which is Yang Xianyi’s Chinese version of Pygmalion. Henceforth, Yang Xianyi’s Chinese version has been modified and reprinted for several times and enjoys great popularity among Chinese readers all along. However, few people choose Yang’s Chinese version of Pygmalion as the subject of their study.The skopos theory, proposed by Hans Vermeer, provides a proper theoretical basis for drama translation, which can deal with the dual nature of drama translation. This thesis is aimed at conducting an analysis on Yang’s Chinese version of Pygmalion from the perspective of Skopos theory, on the basis of which, the author tries to conclude Yang’s translation principles.In this paper, the author tries to answer two questions: How can skopos rule, coherence rule, and fidelity rule be applied to the study of Yang Xianyi’s translation of Pygmalion? What principles can be summarized from Yang’s translation of Pygmalion under the guidance of Skopos Theory? Viewed From the perspective of skopos rule, Yang’s translation of Pygmalion is aimed as a literary text to be appreciated by readers and what the translator do throughout his translation process revolves around this end; viewed from the perspective of coherence rule, the language-context massage and the non-language context message embedded in the source text are handled properly in Yang’s rendition, which are intelligible and coherent to target text receivers; viewed from the perspective of fidelity rule, the particular role names and the rhetoric device in the source text are faithfully preserved in Yang’s rendition. After detailed analysis of Yang’s translation of Pygmalion, the author tries to summarize the principles of Yang’s translation of Pygmalion:focusing on readability; complying with the target text receivers’ situation; keeping in line with the source text. It should be noted that these principles are followed in hierarchy order.The significance of this thesis lies in the following aspects:first of all, compared with the current researches on drama translation which attach too much importance to performability of drama translation, this thesis is special in a sense that it chooses Yang’s translated version of Pygmalion, which aimed to be a literary text, as its research object. It not only fills in the blanks of the current translation studies to some extent, but also attracts the researchers’ attention to the readability of drama translations. In addition, it is the first one in which the author summarizes the principles of Yang’s translation under the guidance of skopos theory and points out the hierarchy order of these principles.