Contrastive Study On The Translation Of Culture-loaded Terms In The Peony Pavilion From The Perspective Of The Skopos Theory

In1598, Tang Xianzu completed the work of The Peony Pavilion which causedhigh sensation at that time. The Peony Pavilion was recited from house to house,almost surpassing China’s most famous play of all times, Xi-xiang ji (West Chamber,written by the13th-century Wang Shifu), in its popularity. As one of the four classicalChinese plays, The Peony Pavilion enjoys a high prestige with its exquisite language,moving plot, and vivid characteristics. The Peony Pavilion does not only boast theliteral value but also the cultural value. There are55plots with600cultural images inthe play, with a wide range of the society, history, religion and mythology. Therefore,the first and foremost task for the readers is how to transmit the connotation of thesource culture to the target readers.Emerging from the1970s, the Functionalism theory proposed a new solution forthe problem of culture translation. The core of the theory, the Skopos theory, based onthe principal of skopos, put forward a systematic theory for translation and itsevaluation. It holds that translation is a kind cross-cultural communication withspecified purpose and translators adopt the translation strategies and methodsaccording to their anticipated skopos. Therefore, one source text will result indifferent translations and translation types because of different skopos. Within theframework of the Skopos theory, adequacy rather than equivalence is the assessmentcriterion for the target text.This thesis attempts to compare the cultural translation of two different translatedversions of The Peony Pavilion from the perspective of the Skopos theory and probesinto how the skopos influences the choice of the translation methods and strategies. Itsuggests that translation of the culture-loaded words is a cross-culturalcommunication guided by the skopos of the translators. As for the cultural translation,the two translators chose different translation strategies due to their differenttranslation skopos. Cyril Birch mainly adopted the foreignization strategy. His targetreaders were mostly the Sinologist and Chinese major students. Because these peoplehad some knowledge about the Chinese culture, Birch hoped that his translation can precisely and faithfully transmit the connotation of traditional Chinese culture. Hemainly adopted the strategies of literal translation and literal translation withannotation which followed the rule of fidelity in the Skopos theory. Professor WangRongpei mainly employed the domestication strategy. His skopos was to attract moreattention of the foreigners to the traditional Chinese culture. His target readers weremainly the common western readers; therefore, Professor Wang mostly adopted thestrategies of free translation, rewrite and omission which conformed to the rule ofcoherence in the Skopos theory. Both translators achieved the anticipated purpose fortarget readers and realized the functions of cross-cultural communication.