| Skopos Theory is the core part of functionalism, holding that the Skopos Rule isthe top-ranking rule that justifies the overall translation process, namely Skopos decideson translation strategies and approach. This thesis attempts to make a comprehensivestudy of the translation of culture-loaded words in the novel Life and Death AreWearing Me Out from the perspectives of Skopos Theory，and intends to explore theimpact of translating skopos on the translator’s choice of translating strategies andapproaches as well as the possible reasons behind them.This research is conducted within the framework of Skopos Theory, taking thenovel Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, translated by Howard Goldblatt, as a casestudy, based on the following classification of culture-loaded words: ecological culture,material culture, social culture and linguistic culture. It is meant to quest for how thetranslating skopos influences the translating strategies and approaches taken by thetranslator and their effects on the translated version.This thesis finds that Howard Goldblatt’s translation amply reflects the four rulesof Skopos theory, namely, skopos rule, fidelity rule, rule of adequacy, and coherencerule. In translating Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out, Goldblatt makes specifictreatment on the translation of culture-specific words with certain instrumental anddocumentary translation strategies, including omission and rewriting. His attempt hasbeen meaningful in that he takes into consideration the skopos of translating for thetarget text reader, for the sake of ease of understanding as well as the skopos ofmarketability of the translated version, and the preservation of traditional and originalflavor of Chinese culture, thus promoting the Chinese culture to a broader readershipoutside China. The translating strategies Goldblatt employs in the case of Life andDeath Are Wearing Me Out provides many insights on the translation of other Chineseliterary works. |
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