On Translation Strategies Of Chinese-specific Terms From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Chinese-specific vocabulary, as an intermediate tool to express the distinctive features of China, has its own deep origin. While these Chinese-specific expressions have been translated into English on the basis of Standard English rules, there emerged a new English variant--China English. Against the backdrop of globalization, China English is an inevitable outcome of the combination of the distinctive language and culture of China and the western world, and can positively affect the spreading of Chinese culture. However, due to the profound historical and cultural differences between the oriental and occidental world, translators cannot easily find out the appropriate corresponding expressions for Chinese-specific expressions in the western context. This untranslatability between English and Chinese also bothered translators for many years. Therefore, in order to ensure the smooth exchange with the outside world, it is imperative to explore the feasible translational strategies to make up for the vocabulary vacancy caused by the cultural vacancy.In1970s, German scholars put forward the Functionalist Translation Theory which shook off the restriction of the popular equivalence theory and provided a new perspective to study translation theory.The Skopos theory initiated and developed by Hans Vermeer in the late of1970s has become the core of this school.The name of skopos theory originated from the Greek word "skopos" which means "purpose, motivation and function". He regarded translation as a kind of human activity with certain purpose (the end justifies the means).From the perspective of functionalist skopos theory, this thesis discussed the translation strategies of Chinese-specific terms. The study shows that①in translating Chinese proper nouns, transliteration is a suitable strategy which can realize the most lossless result and enable the intended readers to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words and thus perceive the real subject or theme of the Chinese-specific terms.②When dealing with Chinese idioms, simple literal translation would only deform the translation and confuse readers. This thesis concludes that when the original images of the Chinese idioms happen to coincide with the associative meaning in English, translators can use the approach of literal translation to preserve the original image without distorting the meaning, through which the charm and flavor of Chinese can also be retained; when there is no perfect or near equivalent expressions, translators should use the strategy of adaptation to replace the image with another one familiar to the target readers but can convey a similar meaning in the English; when the Chinese idiom does not make sense to the target readers at all as the correlation between the images and meaning is unclear or illogical in the Chinese, the translators need to use the strategy of free translation to abandon the original image while preserving the implied meaning and convey the associative or figurative meaning.③when translating the numeral abbreviations which are of the highly summarization, translators can use the strategy of literal translation plus annotation to preserve the features of Chinese and convey the hidden purpose at the same time.④when the translators are working out the translation of Chinese neologisms which are of highly creativity and timeliness, the most frequently adopted strategies are free translation, adaptation, back translation which use the existed or understandable expressions in target-culture to present the original concepts.⑤the intended function of the political translation determines that the overriding principle of the external publicity translation is the "political equivalence".All the Chinese-specific words and the corresponding translations quoted in this thesis are drawn from the Dictionary of New Chinese Phrases in English (the fifth version) collated by www.chinadaily and the2014Report on the Government Work. Through classification and induction, the purpose of this thesis is to analyze the strategies used in translating Chinese-specific terms in the light of Skopos Theory and present the world the distinctive cultural images contained in those Chinese-specific terms.