A Study Of The Translation Of A Passage To India By Yang Zijian From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

"A Passage to India", which signals the shift of the British literature from the classic era to the modern era, is a masterpiece written by the distinguished British novelist E. M. Forster. Yang zijian, a prestigious scholar, has translated the work twice.The novel vividly depicts the great cultural conflicts between Indian people and British colonizers in1920s when the independent movement was gaining huge momentum. People of different cultures found it impossible to develop true friendship facing huge cultural conflicts when India was still in the grip of Britain.The thesis studies Mr. Yang’s second version of the translation of "A Passage to India " from the perspective of the Skopos Theory. The Skopos Theory, advanced by Vermeer and several other German scholars, is a breakthrough in the field of translation studies and an important supplement to the traditional translation approaches. It also provides a new perspective to study the translations of literary works. The present thesis makes an discovery that to produce a translation that is faithful to the original and intelligible to the readers is the purpose of translation based on the meticulous research of the preface, postscripts and other relevant research materials. After the careful comparison between the original novel and the translation, it is found that Mr. Yang’s translation has successfully met the requirements of the three rules in the frame of the Skopos Theory (the skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule). To make it happen, the translator skillfully uses a variety of translation methods, which includes annotation,addition, conversion and reorganization, in the translation process.There are five parts in the thesis:The first part, introduction, sketches the research background, research subjects, research methodology, research significance and the layout of the thesis.The second part, literature review, summarizes the previous research findings on A Passage to India. The fruitful existing researches study the novel from many perspectives ranging from colonialism, post-colonialism, even travel theory and so on, though few researches have been done on translation of the novel, and there are no study ever done on A Passage to India from the perspective of the functionalism approach to translation. The third part introduces the background of Skopos Theory and the frame of three skopos rules in detail. Vermeer, who regards translation as a purposeful action, advances three rules of the Skopos Theory. The skopos rule, which is the most important rule, functions during the whole process of selection of original text, choice of translation strategies and even translation evaluation; coherence rule and fidelity rule are subordinate to skopos rule, and they works under the guidance of the skopo rule. The fourth part studies Yang Zijian’s translation of "A Passage to India" from the perspective of three rules of the skopos theory and summarizes the major translation methods used in the translation. Yang Zijian, a researcher with rigorous scholarship, translates the novel with the purpose of preserving the style of the original works on the condition that the translation accommodates its Chinese readers in his mind. Many evidences show Yang’s translation has fulfilled the requirements of three rules of Skopos Theory on many aspects. The fifth part, conclusion, restates the research findings and limitations of the thesis. Yang’s translation of A Passage to India has fulfilled the requirements of three rules of Skopos Theory and major translation methods such as annotation, addition, conversion and reorganization are used to realize the purpose. Due to limitations of time and space, the thesis has paid no heed to the situation where three rules of skopos theory are realized in other aspects such as register or pragmatic usages.