A Study Of China English From Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the development of the globalization course, English as the lingua franca has been used in more and more countries and regions. And in this process, English has been inevitably influenced by the linguistic and cultural features of different regions, which leads to the appearance of different English varieties with local features. Thus, it can be said that the interaction between English globalization and English localization produces the so-called World Englishes. China English as a member of World Englishes, is the combination product of the English language and the Chinese culture. As the carrier of spreading Chinese culture, China English is “making China go into the world and letting the world know about China”.In the past thirty and more years, many scholars have studied China English from various perspectives. Many of their studies just focused on the level of macroscopic discussion and many related problems are still in dispute. Taking the bilingual writer Lin Yutang’s famous novel Moment in Peking as the research material, the author of this thesis sorts out and classifies the Chinese cultural elements in Moment in Peking and does some interpretations for them. And guided by the Skopos theory, this thesis analyzes the translation strategies and translation methods used in the examples of China English related with these cultural elements from the perspective of cultural translation. After that, the author discusses the objective existence of China English and its significance. Through analyses and discussions, the following conclusions can be drawn from this study:Firstly, Lin Yutang used many examples of localized China English to introduce Chinese cultural elements in Moment in Peking (2009), including material culture, such as clothes, food, furniture and articles for daily use etc.; social culture, such as customs of wedding and funeral, greetings, social concepts, face culture, Chinese medical culture and Chinese terms of address etc.; religious culture, such as five elements, eight characters, customs of burning incense sticks and worshiping the Buddha etc. and linguistic culture, such as dialects, idioms, proverbs and so on. These localized English expressions which preserve the unique flavor of Chinese culture are effective ways for the dissemination of Chinese culture.Secondly, foreignization strategy is the primary translation strategy used by Lin Yutang in his introduction of Chinese culture because the purpose of his writing is to present Chinese culture to western readers. And transliteration, literal translation, liberal translation and substitution are the main translation methods used in the examples of China English. However, in consideration of the western readers’ difficulty in understanding the meaning of these localized English expressions, Lin added some annotations or explanations to them in order to help readers have a better understanding of Chinese culture.Finally, the objective existence of China English is further proved through discussion, and its existence is not only to the benefit of spreading Chinese culture and re-constructing Chinese cultural identity, but also of great importance for the construction of a harmonious world.The author hopes that this study can make some contributions to the dissemination of Chinese culture and also to the study of China English and World Englishes.