Case Study On Automobile Model Translation By The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

In the thesis, the author studied representative cases, with the intent to examine the influence of Skopos theory on automobile model translation.Since the implementation of China’s opening-up policy in 1978, foreign goods of all kinds have swept domestic market. Automobile product is one tip of the iceberg. Demand for model translation grew accordingly and translators employed different strategies in various circumstances.In model translation, literal translation and transliteration are among the most commonly used strategies. Yet in some cases, the English version and translation of model names are not perfectly equivalent, suggesting that translation strategies are affected by other factors. In the author’s opinion, the proposed purposes of translation activity are the very factors. The Skopos theory rules that the selection of translation strategies must be based on its proposed purpose.Cases in this thesis are global models from international brands and are either released or introduced into the Chinese market in 2015 or 2016. The author compared the translation strategy utilized by models of different brands and those of the same brand, conducted research on proposed purposes and concluded that three purposes dominate automobile translation. The compliance with coherence rule is evaluated based on text analysis and real world survey. The fidelity rule is also touched upon with the author’s comments attached.