An Analysis Of Translation Variation In Lin Yutang's English Version Of Six Chapters Of A Floating Life From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Among classical Chinese writings, Fu Sheng Liu Ji enjoys high prestige in Chinese literary history because of such characteristics as beautiful language, sincere emotion and tragic story.Therefore, the fact that Lin Yutang was deeply touched by this literary work would not surprise people. Echoes evoked by spiritual emotion and consensus on living style and life value inspired Lin to "take a vow to render this literary work into English so that westerners would know there was a lovely Chinese couple in Qing Dynasty who enjoyed simple life and showed disdain for worldly fame". After ten revisions, Lin Yutang published his translation in 1935 and generated a stir among English readers. It is said that this translation can best demonstrate Lin's craftsmanship in translation. Scholars at home and abroad have studied Mr. Lin's English version of Fu Sheng Liu Ji from such different perspectives as cultural difference, cultural hybridism and post colonialism. These researches have focused on analyzing Lin's translation strategies, beauty in culture, merit and shortcoming.There are numerous amplification, edition and adaptation in Lin's version. This translation does not comply with demands of traditional theorists who give priority over fidelity and treat fidelity as the only criterion in judging a translation. However, Lin's translation was very popular among English readers. Traditional translating theories can not explain this phenomenon, but Hans J. Vermeer's Skopos theory provides people with a new perspective for explaining this phenomenon.According to Skopos theory, the prime principle that determines any translation process is the purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action. The top-ranking rule for any translation is "Skopos theory". Diverse translation strategy should be adopted to achieve different purposes. Translation is not merely an activity that transforms one language into another, but an interaction between different cultures. Therefore, it is essential for a translator to handle the problem of culture difference appropriately during the process of translation. While translating Fu Sheng Liu Ji, Lin adopted such strategies as amplification, deletion, edition, narration, contraction, combination and adaptation. According to Prof. Huang Zhonglian's definition, such strategies are labeled as translation variation strategies. Lin's practice not only complies with demands of idiomatic English expression, but also retains characteristics of Chinese culture. The author of this thesis makes detailed analysis on the example selected from Lin's version under the guidance of three rules of Skopos theory and draws the conclusion that Lin Yutang adopts translation variation strategy in translating Six Chapters of a Floating life to accomplish his undertaking, that is, convey Chinese culture to western people and his manipulation of translation variation in translating Fu Sheng Liu Ji sets a good example for people.