On The Cultural Connotation And Translation Of Chinese Address Forms From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Language is a key component of culture, which is also the carrier of culture. Different languages exist in different cultural backgrounds. As the commonest words in language system, address forms play an important part in daily communication and inter-cultural communicative activities, which can not only embody the identity and role of people but also reflect the interpersonal relationship between different people in the specific social culture or language context. Due to the different cultural backgrounds in Chinese and Western countries, there are inevitable differences in Chinese and English address forms, which undoubtedly causes difficulties in translation of Chinese and English address forms. This thesis attempts to conduct a study from the perspective of Skopos Theory.The Skopos Theory, as the core theory of German Functional School, holds that translation is not a process of transcoding, but a specific form of human action. The prime principle determining any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translation action, which includes the skopos of the initiator and translator. In the translation process, the translators should stand from the perspective of the target readers and take the background of their socioculture and knowledge into consideration because they are one of the most important factors determining the translation purpose with their own cultural-specific language. The translation (target language text) including the above skopos and factors can be accepted and understood by the target readers.The study of translation of address forms is mainly in the literary works while in the subtitle of films it is relatively few. That is due to the limiting factors of the subtitle, such as time and space. The theme of Ang Lee’s "Family Trilogy"("Pushing Hands","The Wedding Banquet" and "Eat Drink Man Woman") is about the collisions and conflicts between Chinese traditional culture and Western culture. This thesis conducts a study of address forms translation in "Family Trilogy" from the perspective of skopos theory. Through comparison and analysis of the address forms translation, the author summarizes the corresponding translation methods for different situations and examples, namely the omission method, adaptation method, exposition method and literal translation method.At last, the author points out that the selection of translation method should be based on the fast and accurate understanding of the films of the target audiences. Through the case study of address forms translation in "Family Trilogy", this thesis aims to accurately and efficiently translate the address forms so as to raise the target audiences’ cognition and comprehension of the target text and better understand Chinese traditional culture and society.