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

Recognized as a cornerstone of modern economics thoughts,Adam Smith's classic work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations(shortened as The Wealth of Nations in the following sections)has attracted considerable attention at home and abroad.Upon its first publication in 1776,substantial researches regarding its economics thoughts,philosophy,humanistic thoughts and so on have been conducted from various aspects;nevertheless studies on the Chinese translations of The Wealth of Nations based on modern translation theories are few.Furthermore,compared with the rapid development of China's economy,research on the Chinese translation of economics works is still in the preliminary stage and need to be promoted.Taking two representative Chinese versions of different times—Yan Fu's and Yang Jingnian's versions of The Wealth of Nations as the studying objects,this thesis first reviews the previous researches on The Wealth of Nations and its Chinese versions by Yan Fu and Yang Jingnian.After that,taking the Skopos Theory as its theoretical framework,the present author gives a general overview of Skopos Theory by focusing on its three basic rules of Skopos Rule,Coherence Rule and Fidelity Rule.Based on Skopos Theory,the present author conducts a comparative analysis between these two Chinese versions,in which the detailed analysis is done regarding initiators,translators,target readers,linguistic style features,translation purposes and strategies,readers' acceptance,and impact of them,and the relevant rules of the theory are embodied in the analyzing process.Through the comparative study,the present author finds out that due to specific social backgrounds and purposes,two Chinese translations of western economics works have displayed distinctive features.On the one hand,in terms of the selection of the source texts and translation strategies,the translation of economics works cater to the change of social background and reflect the requirements of the society;on the other hand,the strategies employed in the translation are subject to the translation purposes.Yan Fu applies ancient classic Chinese and free translation strategy to reach his purposeof enlightening people and enriching the country while Yang Jingnian adopts modern Chinese and literal translation strategy to introduce western economics thoughts to ordinary people.It reveals that in different epochs the translation of western economics works have disseminated western economic theories and thoughts in China.