A Study On Translation Of English And Chinese Personal Names From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

With reference of previous achievements on personal names and theirtranslations, this research believes conversions of figures of speech are the maindifficulties of personal names’ translation between Chinese and English. Since seldomprevious studies have been done on personal names’ translation from perspective ofconversion of figures of speech, this research first proves that personal names areclosely related to figures of speech, which is prepared for following discussion ofpersonal names’ translation from perspective of figures of speech.By contrasting personal names with a translation-oriented mode of text function,this research points out the main functions of personal names are referential functionand expressive function. As what Skopostheorie proposes that any translation isproduced with a purpose and the purpose decides translation strategies, this researchgeneralizes two Skopos of personal names’ translation, which are realization ofreferential function and realization of expressive function.When the Skopos is to realize personal names’ referential function, transliterationis regarded as being reasonable within framework of Skopostheorie. When the Skoposis to realize personal names’ expressive function, the research tries to concludepersonal names’ translation methods by discussing the conversion of figures of speech.When figures of speech is inconvertible, this research dissects reasons that makefigures of speech inconvertible from the perspective of language and culture based onthe concept of culture and cultural-specificity, then concludes four methods ofpersonal names’ translation by evaluating distinguished cases from famous translationversion like A Dream of Red Mansion with guidance of coherence rule and fidelity rule. The four methods are bridging rhetoric gap, compensating with other figures ofspeech, explanatory notes, and striding across figures of speech. At the end, asupplement explanatory about the Skopos of personal names translation and methodsare done to indicate that translation methods of personal names should be flexible.The methodology applied to this research is qualitative. It first discussesrelationship between personal names and figures of speech, and then concludespersonal names’ translation method within framework of Skopostheorie. It hopes toprovide reference for application of Skopostheorie into personal names’ translationand discussion of personal names’ translation methods from perspective of figures ofspeech.