A Study Of BBC's Translation Of The Oral Naxi Language In Documentary China:Beyond The Clouds In The Light Of Skopos Theory

China:Beyond the Clouds not only records local residents' life in Lijiang in 1990s but also shows an epitome of China's social life.This dissertation aims at analyzing effective translation strategies of documentaries containing ethnic languages.It is necessary to study documentary translation since translation can help documentaries go global.Especially for documentaries containing ethnic languages,translation is a significant factor for communication.Through an overall study on translation examples of representative Naxi phrases and sentences,the dissertation discovers that the translation process reflects the influence of the Skopos Theory and cross-cultural translation on documentary translation.By taking the Skopos Theory as the theoretical foundation,the dissertation combines the skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule with cultural compensation,cultural transplantation and cultural mediation to analyze strategies that can be adopted to translate Naxi language.Accordingly,with theoretical verification and case studies,effective translation strategies such as rewriting,restructuring,condensation,deleting and domestication are summarized based on linguistic culture,material matters,social relationships and thinking patterns of the Naxi.The dissertation points out that translation strategies employed in the documentary successfully help to express the director's intention,spread the Naxi culture,and achieve the purpose of transmitting culture and promoting communication.Thus,the translation of the oral Naxi language in China:Beyond the Clouds is successful.At the same time,the dissertation further illustrates the necessity for translators to choose appropriate strategies according to documentary features,ethnic culture,director's intention and audience's acceptability in the translation process of documentaries containing ethnic languages.