A Study On The Translation Of The Culture-loaded Words In The English Version Of Red Sorghum From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Before the1970s, most translation theorists tended to study translation from theperspective of linguistics, which emphasized the language “equivalence”. In the1970s,the appearance of the skopos theory provided the translation field with a newperspective. It points out that the evaluating standard for the translated version is“adequacy” instead of “equivalence”—the translated version should meet thetranslation purpose and achieve its communicative function in the target languagecontext and culture. Under the guidance of human action theory, the skopos theory intranslation claims that the translation purpose decides the translation strategies andmethods. A qualified translated version must be achieved when the translationpurpose is specified at first.With the development of globalization, the communications among nationsincreased rapidly and people’s wish to know about foreign culture intensifiedincreasingly. As for this, translators cannot be satisfied with the equivalence of wordsonly, but have to meet readers’ expectation to achieve the cultural communication.Culture-loaded words are encoded with the specific culture of a country or nation. Thecorrect translation of them will provide the readers with an effective way to get toknow foreign culture; however, it is of great difficulty to translate the culture-loadedwords because of the significant difference between languages. Therefore, it is aworthy topic on how to employ proper translation strategies to complete this task witha specified purpose.Ge Haowen (Howard Goldblatt) is a famous American sinologist. He obtainedthe Doctorate of Chinese literature and won the highest reputation in the Englishworld. His translation style is precise and exquisite which “illuminates Chineseliterature with hues of contemporary Britihsh and American literature.” Ge Haowentranslated many works by Mo Yan, who was the winner of Nobel Prize in Literaturein2012. The English version of Red Sorghum is an outstanding one among them. InRed Sorghum, Ge Haowen ingeniously combines the translation strategies ofdomestication and foreignizaion, which enables the readers to learn about Chineseculture in a smooth translated version.This thesis analyzes the translation strategies of the culture-loaded words in theEnglish version of Red Sorghum from the perspective of the skopos theory. In order tointroduce more Chinese culture to the English readers with a smooth English version, Ge Haowen employs various methods, such as literal translation, transliteration, freetranslation, reduction, addition, etc., to meet the readers’ expectation and achieve thepurpose of cultural communication.