A Study On Translation Of China’s National Publicity Film From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

After reforms and opening up policy, China’s economy has developed by leaps and bounds, which caused the boosting of communication between China and other countries along with the increasing enhancement of China’s status in the world. Cultural publicity materials are produced as one kind of approach reshaping country’s image. By the time of their creation, they have attracted more and more attention. A good many of publicity films are also produced one by one. However, with wide varieties and different translation criteria, the quality of translation seriously affects disseminating effect. Only with correct and accurate translation can the world know Chinese, know Chinese culture and Chinese spirit better. Traditional translation theories have contributed a lot to the development of translation practice for thousands of years, but the main point of them is only the correctness of the language itself. Most of them pay much attention to the word for word, sentence for sentence translation. The field of the research is too narrow, therefore, it is obviously not proper to translate publicity materials especially publicity films by means of such theories as publicity film translation emphasizes practical effect. Skopostheorie, however, believes that translation is not pure transformation of language. In1970s Germany Functionalist Approaches, with Skopostheorie as its fundamental theory, hold that every action has an objective, the translator chooses the appropriate way to achieve the desired result according to the reality. And Skopostheorie put forward by Vermeer shows that the ends justify means. It is appropriate to guide practical translation by means of this theory. The analyzed object of this thesis is mainly the translation of China’s national publicity films. To begin with, the paper analyzes Skopostheorie and introduces the development, three important rules and applicability of it. Then, the paper introduces national image, national publicity film and two translation principles of national publicity film such as in accordance with foreign audience’s habits and custom. Finally, the paper analyzes the Skopos of China’s national publicity film translation and puts forward translation procedures and micro translation skills. Translation procedures consist of analysis of the function of the source text, analysis of the Skopos of target text and test of translation quality. The summarized micro translation skills include explanation, reconstruction, omission and abbreviation.