Abstract

Prose plays a unique role in various literary styles of composition due to its natural style and elegant words and phrases. As a kind of typical and important form of words, reduplicated words have special rhetorical effects in expression, image, and rhythm. They also contribute high aesthetic value and elegant effectiveness to prose writing. Therefore, reduplicated words are frequently used by Chinese writers. Although there are reduplicated words in both English and Chinese, reduplicated words in Chinese are far more complicated and flexible. Besides, limited by cultural difference and inadequate English reduplicated words, translators often encounter great difficulty in achieving the complete equivalence between the source text and the target text. Skopos theory, as the core theory of German functionalist school, emerged in 1970s, which opened up a new perspective for translation study. Under the guidance of Skopos theory, this thesis aims to study the C-E translation of reduplicated words in Wandering by the research of the English version translated by Yang Xianyi and Dai Neidie. Wandering is a collection of 11 short novels written by Lu Xun who was an essential Chinese writer in the 20th century. 

This thesis has six chapters. The first chapter is an introduction chapter. The second chapter looks back previous studies on the Skopos theory and the reduplicated words. The third chapter discusses the characteristics of both the Chinese and English reduplicated words and categorizes both of them into several kinds. The fourth chapter discusses the enlightenment of Skopos theory on the C-E translation of reduplicated words in Wandering. That is, the Skopos rule is a top-ranking rule that translators should obey during the process of translation while coherence rule and fidelity rule are basic requirements to realize target-text function. The fifth chapter is a practical analysis of the C-E translation of reduplicated words in Wandering and studies the main translation strategy and specific translation skills Yang and Dai have used during the process of translation. The last chapter will summarize what has been discussed. 

Key words: reduplication; Wandering; Skopos theory

Contents

Abstract

摘  要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-2

2.1 A Review of Previous Studies on Skopos Theory-2

2.2 A Review of Previous Studies on Reduplicated Words-4

3. Characteristics of Reduplicated Words-5

3.1 Reduplicated Words in Chinese Language-5

3.2 Reduplicated Words in English Language-5

4. Enlightenment of Skopos Theory on the C-E Translation of Reduplicated Words in Wandering-7

4.1 Skopos Rule as the Top-ranking rule-7

4.2 Coherence Rule and Fidelity Rule as Basic Requirements to Realize Target-text Function-7

4.3 Loyalty Rule as the Moral Requirements for Translators-8

5. Practical Analysis of C-E Translation of Reduplicated Words in Wandering in light of Skopos Theory-9

5.1 Free Translation as the Main Strategy for C-E Translation of Reduplicated Words in Wandering-9

5.2 Specific C-E Translation Techniques of Reduplicated Words in Wandering-11

5.2.1 Change of the Part of Speech-11

5.2.2 Omission-12

6. Conclusion-13

References-14