目的论视角下A Thousnd Splendid Suns中译本研究

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
Skopos theory, a concept from the field of translation studies, provides scholars anew perspective to study the nature of translation activity as a purposeful activity. Itwas established by the German linguist Hans Vermeer and comprises the idea thattranslating should primarily take the function of the source and target text intoconsideration .Within Skopos theory, translation is an across-culture communicative activitywhich transfers the information of the source culture to the target culture. So, Skopostheory provides a new perspective for translation study. The introduction of Skopostheory breaks up the limitation of the source-text oriented translation criterion and thetarget-text translation oriented criterion. Skopos refers to the purpose of the overalltranslation action. Skopos theory includes three rules: skopos rule, coherence rule andfidelity rule. Translation activity is primarily determined by translation Skopos so thatskopos rule is the highest principle in Skopos theory. Coherence rule requires thattranslation should be readable and acceptable by the target readers,so that the receivercan get the meaning of the translation. Fidelity rule demands that target text shouldkeep a certain relationship with the corresponding source text. To some extent, it issimilar with maximally faithful imitation of other translation rules. But in fidelity rule,the degree of fidelity depends on translator’s understanding of target text and thepurpose of every time’s translation. As for the roles of the three rules, fidelity rule isconsidered to be subordinate to coherence role, and it should be pointed that both ofcoherence rule and fidelity rule are subordinate to skopos rule.
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1.2 Significance and Objectives of the Study
Along with China’s reforming and opening up to the outside world, more andmore outstanding original foreign literature and translated literature have beenintroduced to Chinese readers. And Chinese readers can enjoy a wider range of literaryworks than ever before. The publication and popularity of A Thousand Splendid Suns’English and Chinese version is a good example. Both of the book’s English andChinese version were extremely popular in America and China. So the progress of LiJihong’s translation of A Thousand Splendid Suns is worthy of our study.This thesis makes attempt to summarize Li Jihong’s translation principles andmethods of the Chinese version of A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective ofSkopos theory. The author hopes that this thesis will provide some suggestions for thefuture study of A Thousand Splendid Suns and literary translation.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 A Brief Introduction to A Thousand Splendid Suns and its Chinese Version
Khaled Hosseini, the only Afghan-American writer who writes in Englishlanguage, was born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan(Zhang Guang yun, Wang Zhi lin.2014,105). His father was a diplomatic officer of Afghan Foreign Ministry and hismother is a girl’s school teacher. Deeply influenced by his parents, Khaled Hosseinideveloped a liking for literature since his childhood. He read a lot and led a happy lifewith his family. However, he and his family moved to Paris in 1976, later the UnitedStates in 1980. He studied biology in Santa Clara University and medicine in theUniversity of California. After graduation, he became a physician. However, Hosseininever gave up his interest in fiction writing. In June, 2003, The Kite Runner, KhaledHosseini’s first novel was published by Riverhead Books, ranking the best-seller listfor a long time. The Kite Runner brought him great success and fame. And four yearslater, A Thousand Splendid Suns proved Hosseini to be a mature writer. His wife andfather-in-law gave him strong support at the time of republication.A Thousand Splendid Suns is written by Afghan-American author KhaledHosseini. It is Khaled Hosseini’s second novel. The book spans on a period of over 50years, from the 1960s to 2003, focusing on the tumultuous lives and relationship of twoAfghan women, Mariam and Laila . Mariam, an illegitimate girl, suffers from thestigma surrounding her birth and the abuse she faces throughout her marriage. Laila,born about twenty years later, is comparatively privileged during her youth until theirlives intersect and she is also forced to marry Rasheed, Mariam's husband. A ThousandSplendid Suns was published by Riverhead Books on May 22, 2007, and receivedfavorable prepublication reviews from Booklist, Library Journal and PublishersWeekly . After its release, it became a number one New York Times bestseller for 15weeks. Following its release, more than one million copies were sold in the first week.
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2.2 Previous Studies on A Thousand Splendid Suns
After the publication of A Thousand Splendid Suns and its Chinese version( LiJihong’s version), some relevant researches have been done about the two versions.The majority of the studies focused on literary field and some analyzed A ThousandSplendid Suns from the perspective of feminism.Shang Biwu (2008) explored the personality and behavior emotion of the maincharacters in A Thousand Splendid Suns from the perspective of Appraisal theory.Starting from the lexical level, Shang tried to demonstrate the sexually discriminatedand miserable life of Afghan women. It provides a different view of point to appreciatethis novel.Wang Sida(2012) held that A Thousand Splendid Suns embodied theeco-feminism thought and analyzed the eco-feminism issues in A Thousand SplendidSuns by combining text research and study of cultural background.Jiang Yingying(2012) conducted a master thesis concerning the eco-feminism in AThousand Splendid Suns. She pointed out that women in patriarchal society just playedthe role of servants and tools to give birth and thereal reason of women’s miserablelife was the unequal between man and woman.
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Chapter 3 Analysis of the Chinese Version from Skopos Rule..... 9
3.1 The Skopos in the Chinese Version ........ 9
3.2 Foreignization and Domestication ........ 10
3.2.1 Application of Foreignization .......... 11
3.2.2 Application of Domestication .......... 13
3.2.3 Addition of Footnotes .......... 15
Chapter 4 Analysis from Coherence Rule and Fidelity Rule...... 19
4.1 Analysis from Coherence Rule ....... 19
4.2 Analysis from Fidelity Rule...... 26
4.2.1 Translation of Rhetoric Device ........ 27
Chapter 5 Conclusion...... 31
5.1 Significance and Enlightment of the Study ...... 31
5.2 Limitations of the Study...... 32

Chapter 4 Analysis from Coherence Rule and Fidelity Rule

4.1 Analysis from Coherence Rule
Coherence rule requires that the translator should make a readable and meaningfultranslation for the target readers, so the translation should not only convey the impliedmeanings in source text, but also be an acceptable text to target readers. A text is mademeaningful by its receiver and for its receiver. ( Nida, 2001:31) Thus a text should bemeaningful to target-culture receivers. The target text should conform to the standardof ‘intratextual coherence’. As is known, English and Chinese belong to differentlanguage systems. They are quite different in expression, grammar, sentence patternand so on. If the target text is translated word by word, Chinese readers would beconfused and lost. For instance, in the 1930s, translators translated foreign texts wordby word. Some scholars preferred fidelity to smoothness. Consequently, manytranslations were obscure and even failed to make any sense to Chinese readers. Inorder to achieve intratextual coherence, Li Jihong adopts some appropriate methods toprovide Chinese readers an readable text.
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Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that Li Jihong’s translation of AThousand Splendid Suns is adequate and reasonable from the perspective of Skopostheory. Firstly, as a literary text, Li’s translation of A Thousand Splendid Suns readssmoothly and naturally. Secondly, the rendition is intelligible and readable to targetreaders. Last but not the least, Li Jihong’s translation of A Thousand Splendid Suns isfaithful to the source text to a great extent. It is hard for the translator to achieve such asatisfactory result because of the huge difference between English and Chineselanguage and the limitation of the rendition as a literary text to be appreciated bycommon Chinese readers. This thesis has made a detailed analysis of Li Jihong's translation of A ThousandSplendid Suns on the basis of Skopos theory and Li Jihong's translation principles aresummarized on the basis of the above analysis. Additionally, the principles andmethods given in this thesis may serve as an inspiration for further studies. Theenlightment of the study can be summarized as follows:Firstly, this is the initial study on Li Jihong’s translation of A Thousand SplendidSuns from the perspective of Skopos theory. Among the numerous studies on theChinese version of the novel, they are more inclined to analyze the novelfrom the viewpoint of feminism. Therefore, Li Jihong’s translation of A ThousandSplendid Suns which aims to be a literary text to be appreciated by readers deservesmore attention. The above analysis in the study shows that it is reasonable and feasibleto conduct a study of Li Jihong’s translation of A Thousand Splendid from theperspective of Skopos theory. In this study, it is confirmed that translation Skoposdetermines translation process and Skopos theory can be applied to the study of literarytranslation.
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