| Skopos Theory was formed in the late seventies of twentieth century in Germany. It focuses on functional and cultural factors; and it pays attention to absorbing and learning from communication theory, behavioral theory, the theory of textual linguistics and discourse analysis, and reader's reaction and acceptation theory in literature study. Skopos Theory forms its own special theory system and school. Skopos Theory initially is practical which is mainly adopted in the translation of practical writings. But later, with the development of Skopos Theory, it is gradually adopted in the textual analysis of literary works. Finally, Skopos Theory has formed its unique theoretical basis and analysis strategy. The core content of Skopos Theory is: the intended purposes of translation which determine the translation strategies are constrained by cultural backgrounds of readers. At the same time, literature translation should follow the fidelity and coherence rules to a large extent to achieve the interlingual and intralingal coherence in order to let the reader understand the meaning of source-text. It breaks through the limitations of equivalence theory and emphasizes coordinating the relationship of original intentions of source-text, translators and readers of target-text, which provides a dynamic pluralistic perspective for translation. Skopos Theory is essential for the study of translation variants and the development of translation theory.The Adventures of Tom Sawyer is one of the representative works of Mark Twain, which is renowned in children literature around the world. In children's literature translation, it is also one of works that many translators are interested in. The form and content of children's literature translation should be determined by the level of knowledge, experience, cultural background, interests, different ages and other factors. Translators should make the language vivid and easy to understand, translate with the children's tone and preserve the children's interests, so as to introduce the spirit of the original work to the Chinese young readers. Through the comparison between the version of Zhang Yousong and the version of Fan Chunhai and Xia Min, the paper focuses on analyzing the different translations because the translators adopt different translation strategies under the guidance of Skopos Theory.There are two purposes for the paper. One purpose is to present effective guidance of Skopos Theory for the translators. The other purpose is to demonstrate how the translators select the appropriate translation strategies to successfully finish its communicative purpose in multi-level text, especially in children's literature translation. Skopos Theory is often used in the translation of non-literary texts. Few researches about how to apply Skopo Theory in the literary translation, especially in children's literary translation are carried out. The paper compares and analyzes the two Chinese versions of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer from a new perspective of Skopos Theory to prove the feasibility of Skopos Theory in children's literature translation.The paper is divided into three parts:The first part is the introduction which gives a brief introduction to the reasons of study, methods and structures of this paper.The second part is the main body which is divided into three chapters:The first chapter describes the background, emergence and development of German Functionalist Approach. And then it introduces its core theory - Skopos Theory which includes its content, three principles and the relationship of three principles. At last, it concludes the criteria of translation under the framework of Skopos Theory.The second chapter introduces the language features of children's literature and the development of children's literature; and then it gives an introduction to the famous American short story writer, Mark Twain, and the outline of his first children's literature work The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. At last, it gives details about the translators and the characteristics of two Chinese versions.The third chapter introduces the application of Skopos Theory in children's literature translation. Then it introduces translation purposes of two Chinese versions respectively. And then from the linguistic and cultural aspects, the chapter analyzes the two Chinese versions with the comparison of some examples. But the two angles are conducted under the guidance of Skopos Theory. With the same purpose, this chapter compares two versions from the vocabulary, syntax,rhetoric and grammar aspects respectively firstly. At last, it chooses some representative words and expressions to analyze the two translations under the different cultural backgrounds in order to achieve the inter-cultural communication.The third part concludes the paper. It sets out the advantages of Skopos Theory in German Functionalist Approach. In the process of translation, Skopos Theory becomes a ruler of the choice between literal and free translation; domestication and foreignization; dynamic equivalence and formal equivalence. Then it illustrates the impact of Skopos Theory on Chinese translation area. Finally, it presents the practical significance of the study. |
