An Analysis Of Wen Qiayi’s Translation Of The Search For Modern China From The Perspective Of The Skopos Theory

Nowadays, China is becoming more influential and gaining more say on the international arena. As a result, researches on China conducted by foreign scholars and relevant publications abound abroad despite of the uneven quality of translations. The Search for Modern China is a representative work of Jonathan D. Spence, eminent sinologist and former president of the American Historical Association. He is well-known throughout the world for his insightful views on modern China from the vintage point of view and introduces his observations and researches to readers via storytelling. The Search for Modern China achieves a fine blend of narrative richness and efficiency and is praised as a miracle of readability and scholarly authority. This book has been one of the most authoritative works on China in American universities, and correspondingly, the Chinese translation has received wide attention.The Skopos theory is an approach to translation developed by the German functionalist school in the late1970s. Translation is viewed as a specific form of human action and has a purpose (skopos). The skopos of the target text is determined by the initiator’s needs. Consequently, the skopos is largely constrained by the target text users (reader/listener) and their situation and cultural background. The skopos determines the selection made from the information offered in the source text and arrangement of content. This theory is mainly composed of the overriding skopos rule and the supplementary general rules of coherence and fidelity. The methods and strategies used to produce a translation are determined by the intended purpose (skopos) of the target text. This theory has been widely applied to analyzing different text types and demonstrates its merits in dealing with varied translation criteria and strategies and bringing the translator’s subjectivity into full play.The author of this thesis selects the well-recognized and highly praised translation done by Wen Qiayi and focuses on the first part of The Search for Modern China which dates back from late Ming dynasty at the end of the sixteenth century to the disintegration of Qing Empire in the early twentieth century. This paper is based on the Skopos theory and tries to evaluate and analyze the skopos of and the translation strategies applied by the translator from four aspects. This paper aims to explore the feasibility of the Skopos theory and the extent to which the translator complies with the three rules. This paper summarizes the translation skills, explains how the translator achieves the combination of readability and scholarly authority in his translation, points out the inadequacies and room for further improvement and tries to justify the guiding role of the skopos theory in sinological studies. It is hoped that this paper will provide references for selecting the suitable translation strategies and improve the overall quality of translation.