A Study On The Chinese Version Of A Mercy From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

A Mercy,published in 2008,is the latest novel of the world-renown Afro-American writer Toni Morrison.Since its publication,it has attracted much attention both at home and abroad.At present,there is only one Chinese version of A Mercy,translated as“En Hui”(恩惠)by Hu Yunhuan and published in 2013.Perhaps because of this,the studies of the novel from the perspective of translation are quite few,let alone the research made on its translation from the perspective of Skopostheorie.Therefore,in order to broaden the field of translation study,this paper,under the guidance of Skopostheorie,aims to make a detailed comparison and analysis between the source text and target text and investigate the translation strategies.Skopostheorie is one of the most important translation theories from the Functionalist School. Unlike the traditional translation theory, Skopostheorie does not lay emphasis on “linguistic equivalence” between the source text and target text, but stresses that the translator should take the intended function as the starting point in the process of translation, and choose the best approach according to the certain situation. That is to say, the translation strategies always rely on the expectable Skopos or function, which refers to the Skopos rule. In focusing on the function of translation, Skopostheorie attaches great importance on the readability of the translation in the target language as well, namely the coherence rule, and on the inter-textual coherence between the source text and target text, namely the fidelity rule. But both of them are subordinate to the Skopos rule.This thesis applies descriptive and comparative analysis methods on the basis of Skopostheorie. The research is to analyze the source text and the target text with the three key rules of Skopostheorie, respectively, Skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule. The following questions are investigated:1. What’s the Skopos of the translation of A Mercy?2. How are the three rules reflected in the translation of A Mercy?3. What translation methods does the translator employ in order to fulfill the Skopos?Through the detailed comparison, it can be found that the Chinese version is similar with the original text in the aspects of language features and rhetorical devices. Hence, the translation kept the writing style in general. From purpose-oriented translation analysis in black culture, the translator pays much attention to the symbolism and deep meaning of the source text, and applies literal translation, annotations to render the cultural background information. As for readability analysis from coherence rule, Hu produces a meaningful and readable text for the corresponding target reader. The translation achieves the effect of intra-textual coherence by readjusting the sentence order, adding characters and converting the part of speech. In this way, it fits the Chinese syntax and grammar norms better. As for the fidelity rule, Hu’s version produces an analogous stylistic effect as the original, adopts the same rhetorical devices as the source text like simile, metaphor, parallelism and exaggeration.