On The Translation Of Idioms In A Dream Of Red Mansions Translated By Yang Xianyi From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

As a branch of German functionalism, Skopostheorie is a theory that has beendiscussed for a long time, according to the skopostheorie the translation action shouldbe determined by the translation skopos. That is the end justifies the means. As aprimary translation, the theory opens a perspective for the translation study. In mythesis, I will analysis the translation of idioms in A Dream of Red Mansions translatedby Yang Xianyi from the perspective of Skopostheorie.As one of the most famous Chinese classic literary, Hong Lou Meng attachesgreat attention both at home and abroad. Many scholars try to study the Hong LouMeng from every perspect. But the translation of idioms in Hong Lou Meng is notenough. In my thesis, some idioms are selected from the original novel andtranslation text A Dream of Red Mansions translated by Yang Xianyi. From theexamples collected, we can find the translation strategies adopted by Yang Xianyi.Yang Xianyi adopts the strategy of foreignization at most, and the strategy ofdomestication is not very frequently. But the combination of foreignization anddomestication also play an important role in their translation. Yang Xianyi’stranslation strategies have fulfilled the translation purpose in order to spread Chineseculture to the world.This thesis mainly discusses something about the idioms and skopostheorie, andthe factors affect the translation of idioms. There are three factors that wouldinfluence the idioms translation. They are respectively three rules in skopostheorie,the translator and addressee. The theory provides a new way for the translator toconsider why he chooses this translation strategy instead of another one. The threerules of skopostheorie, skopos rule, fidelity rule and coherence rule all play animportant role in the translation. Especially the skopos rule is the top-ranking factorsshould be considered. And the fidelity rule makes the target text and the source texthave some certain relationship. The coherence rule creates a new communicativesituation for the target readers. These three rules make the translation of A Dream of Red Mansions in a high level. The translator’s life experience, educationalbackground and translation purpose as well as the addressee’s expectation allcontribute a great influence to the translation of idioms in A Dream of Red Mansionstranslated by Yang Xianyi. The great translation gives the target readers a great chanceto access to our traditional cultural and classic literary.