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Strategies For The C-E Translation Of The Culture-specific Items In My Life As Emperor From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Posted on:2021-01-04Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:X H ChangFull Text:PDF
GTID:2415330602968717Subject:English Language and Literature
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My Life as Emperor is a novel written by Chinese contemporary writer Su Tong,and one of his three novels translated into English.The novel used the writing style of magical realism,describing how an emperor legendarily became a juggler after a succession of vicissitudes.Once being translated into English by American sinologist Howard Goldblatt and published in America in 2005,the novel attracted extensive attention from overseas readers and mainstream media.This is partly attributable to Goldblatt's excellence in dealing with the large number of cultural-specific items of the original.As language is inseparable from culture,cultural-specific items in a culture are fossilized and crystallized expressions reflecting the peculiarities of that culture.How to translate the cultural-specific items of a novel is,therefore,of great importance to the successful recognition and reception of that novel,and has attracted much attention in the community of translation studies.With the Chinese and English versions of My Life as Emperor as its subjects of research,the present thesis is intended to examine,clarify,and justify the strategies for translating the cultural-specific items of the original from the perspective of Skopos theory,and analyze how translation Skopos determine the approaches to translating.With reference to Nida's classification of culture,cultural-specific items in the present research fell into five categories: ecological cultural-specific items,material cultural-specific items,social cultural-specific items,religious cultural-specific items,and language cultural-specific ones.Viewed from Skopos theory perspective,foreignization was the primary strategy that Goldblatt applied to translating those cultural-specific items in that novel,though domestication also applied in some cases.Practical approaches include literal translation,transliteration,annotation,free translation,substitution,amplification,and omission.The present research further indicates that Goldblatt adopted free translation,substitution,amplification,and omission for the purpose of coherence,while literal translation,transliteration,and annotation for the purpose of fidelity.Seen from the Skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule of Skopos theory,adoption of whichever approach to translating is virtually dependent upon the degree of target language readers' reception,and particularly the purpose of communication between the source culture and target culture.
Keywords/Search Tags:My Life as Emperor, culture-specific items, Skopos theory, translation strategies, translation methods
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