A Study Of Domestication And Foreignization In The Republic Of Wine From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The Republic of Wine is one of the representative works of Chinese contemporary writer Mo Yan, in which he integrated political language and proverbs with local slangs by his proficient language competence. The Republic of Wine is diversified in writing styles, and it contains a great number of Chinese traditional customs and cultural elements. Hence, the study of Goldblatt’s translation is of much importance.Skopos theory, which is put forward by Hans J. Vermeer, defines translation as a cross-cultural communicative activity based on the source text and modestly manipulated by translator. It is the most influential and dominant theory of the German school of functionalist translation theory. Domestication and foreignization are two commonly-used translation strategies in cultural translation. The former emphasizes on the fluency and expressiveness of the translated text, while the latter focuses on retaining the exotic flavor of the original language when translating it into the target text. After the proposal of "cultural turn", translation is no longer the simple transfer of two languages, but the communicative activity between two cultures. Therefore, from the perspective of Skopos theory, the thesis intends to make a systematical analysis of the alternative application of domestication and foreignization in translation process, exploring how intercultural communication are achieved by the combination of the two strategies.The thesis mainly discusses three questions:First, what translation strategies have been adopted respectively in light of three rules of Skopos theory? Second, what is Goldblatt’s major purpose of employing domestication and foreignization in translating The Republic of Wine? Third, how does Goldblatt achieve the purpose of cross-cultural communication by utilizing domestication and foreignization in translation? Based on these three questions, the author focuses on the application of domestication and foreignization in the translation of culturally-loaded words, similes and metaphors, allusions, idioms, proverbs, and typical paragraphs. After an overall analysis, the thesis has proved that Goldblatt’s major purpose of employing domestication and foreignization in translating The Republic of Wine lies in two aspects:one is to transmit traditional Chinese cultures to the target readers, the other is to cater for Western readers’reading habits and cultural background. When dealing with those expressions characterized with unique Chinese cultural images, Goldblatt mostly adopts domestication to avoid misunderstanding of target readers. When translating phrases concerned with notable historical figures and traditional Chinese cultures, he tends to employ foreignization to leave the exotic flavor in original text reserved in order to encourage Westerners to know more about Chinese culture. To sum up, domestication and foreignization are mutually complementary and improved, only by the effective combination of these two strategies can they exceedingly contribute to successful intercultural communication.