Parody Translation From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Both in English and in Chinese parody is widely used to strengthen the artistic appeal of the language and enhance the communicative effect of the utterance. Parody is not only a linguistic concept, but also takes on culture-specific features. To some extent, the translation of parody challenges the translator's wit. However, the study of parody translation is far from satisfactory and traditional translation theories seem increasingly inadequate. Therefore, this study aims to form a solid theoretical framework for parody translation study, so as to bridge the gap between the abundant practice and a not-yet-adequately-researched discipline of parody translation. Furthermore, it makes an attempt to analyze a corpus of authentic materials in different text varieties, especially in literary works, advertisements and news headlines to find out how specific parody is translated from the perspective of Skopostheorie.As the most important theory of functionalism, Skopostheorie persists that the Skopos is the prime principle determining the overall translational action. In the framework of Skopostheorie, translation is essentially a purposeful, communicative, and cross-cultural action. One of the most important factors determining the purpose of a translation is the target text addressee, who is the intended receiver or audience of the target text with their culture-specific backgrounds, their expectations and their communicative needs.This thesis takes Skopostheorie as a theoretical framework. It discusses the linguistic, pragmatic and cultural features of parody. In view of the rhetorical, cognitive and word formation functions of parody, both linguistic context and cultural context have become key factors in parody translation and the target text receiver should be assigned a higher status, which is in accordance with Skopostheorie. By illustrating, this thesis proposes that such translation approaches as imitating, substituting, paraphrasing and adapting should be effective in parody translation. Besides these, this thesis points out that a translator plays a creative role in the translation process.In this thesis, Chapter 1 introduces the background of the study, objectives of the study, scope of the study and sources of data as well as the structure of the thesis; Chapter 2 is the literature review; Chapter 3 focuses on the comparison of parody in English and Chinese from the definition, classification, characteristics and functions of parody; Chapter 4 explains why Skopostheorie is chosen for parody translation and analyzes the specific approaches to translating parody in the light oi Skopostheorie and then explores the requirements for translator; and finally, Chapter 5 draws the conclusion.