A Comparative Study Of Three Chinese Versions Of The Wealth Of Nations From The Perspective Of The Skopos Theory

Recently,re-translation of classics has been booming in China.As a world-astounding masterpiece in economics,The Wealth of Nations has aroused much attention of scholars and translators.From 2000 until now,there are more than 20 Chinese versions of The Wealth of Nations,including illustrated edition,abbreviated edition and commemorative edition.In the present thesis,the author selects three Chinese versions of The Wealth of Nations.They are translated respectively by Guo Dali co-authored with Wang Yanan,Yang Jingnian,as well as Hu Changming.Within the framework of the Skopos theory,the author analyzes the selected Chinese versions in terms of the skopos rule,the coherence rule,the fidelity rule and the function plus loyalty principle.Firstly,based on the skopos rule,the author compares the three versions from aspects of clients,translation briefs and the translators' skopos.The first rendering by Guo Dali and Wang Yanan was published in the 1930s.It was also the first translation of The Wealth of Nations written in vernacular Chinese.They translated the work to make way for the translation of Das Kapital and the dissemination of the Marxism.The edition in 2014 that the author selects is revised based on the one in 1931,so the contents generally are consistent.Therefore,in this version the style of wring is affected by the classical Chinese,which make readers have difficulties in comprehending the work.With regard to Yang's version,the committee chooses The Wealth of Nations to be retranslated because the book entails great economic thoughts that can be used as a reference for the construction of the socialist economic system.This requires the translator to master in economics and English.Yang Jingnian meets the requirements.His high skill of writing makes the translation accurate in expression and faithful to the original work.As to the Hu's version,the committee expects the great work to prevail among the common readers.On this occasion,the translator compiles the work with graphical explanations,which makes the work easy to understand but unprofessional.Secondly,concerning the language usage,the author makes comparisons at lexical,syntactic and structural levels.At lexical level,the choices of words are influenced by the economic,political and social environment at that time.The author finds out that the words in Guo's version(1931)have the class nature while in 2014 edition the author has revised these words.At syntactic level,Guo's translation is rigorous.The sentence patterns are largely consistent with the original work.The translators have achieved fidelity to the source text but to some extent haven't fulfilled the coherence.Yang Jingnian is so proficient in English and Chinese that he has the ability to comprehend the original work.Thus he can accomplish the faithfulness and coherence.Concerning Hu's translation,the translator reconstructs the long and complex sentences into a condensed one to cater to the common readers.At the structural level,the most notable characteristic is the upset order that Hu Changming has made compared with the source text.Thirdly,in terms of translation strategies and methods,to achieve the coherence and fidelity,the translators have employed different ones such as literal translation,free translation,addition and deletion.In Guo's version,the translators use literal translation to achieve the equivalence.Yang Jingnian translates his work by using the combination of literal and free translation.In order to cater to common readers,Hu Changming adopts the free translation and omits some of the abstruse contents according to the source text.Moreover,Yang Jingnian and Hu Changming add the leading parts before each volume and each chapter.Deletion is frequently used in Hu's version which is clearly not faithful to the source text.Lastly,in term of the translator's loyalty,the author analyzes the three versions from the perspective of the translator's loyalty to the source text author and to the target text receivers.In Yang's versions,the translator uses the footnotes to explain the parts that may be unfamiliar to the target text readers but commonly known by the source text recipients.The translator achieves his loyalty morally and culturally.In a word,Guo's and Yang's versions are suitable for the specialized people to read while Hu's version caters to the common people.