On The Translation Of Ancient Chinese Fables From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Fables, as the "light cavalry" of cultural exchange among different nations, always land on the foreign soil ahead of other literary genres. Ancient Chinese fables, as one part of Chinese literary classics, with its short length and profound meaning, spread distinct Chinese culture to the rest of the world. However, the translation of ancient Chinese fables frequently puzzles foreigners who have urgent needs to learn more about Chinese culture. To systematically and comprehensively introduce Chinese fables, Ancient Chinese Fables in the Chinese-English format is published, which will definitely absorb more and more attention to the translation of ancient Chinese fables.From 1970s, Skopostheorie has brought great breakthrough to the traditional translation theories. According to Skopostheorie, translating is a kind of human action, and a purposeful activity. "Adequacy", which is the qualities of a target text with regard to the translation brief, is taken as the criterion accordingly. Although Skopostheorie was proposed in 1970s, however, the research of fable translation within the framework of Skopostheorie is rare.Within the framework of Skopostheorie, the present thesis concludes the functions of ancient Chinese fables from the perspective of its definitions and features and etc. And it also points out the connection between these functions and the final purpose of fable translation is to fully display Chinese excellent culture. To achieve this purpose, the translator not only needs to convey the moral lesson of fables, but also needs to detain the culture elements as much as possible. When translating ancient Chinese fables, the four functions of fables, namely, the aesthetic function, the cognition function, the education function and the culture-transmitting function should be realized as much as possible. Among them, the aesthetic function is the fundamental function while culture transmitting function is the final purpose of fable translation. Therefore, as much as original flavor should be retained in the translation.In accordance with Skopostheorie, translators are free to choose whatever proper translation methods or strategies to serve their intended functions. In the practice of translating Ancient Chinese Fables, due to difference between Chinese culture and western culture, and the unique functions of ancient Chinese fables, Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang flexibly adopted different translation strategies and methods to realize the skopos. They also deal with the translation according to the coherence rule and fidelity rule. At the same time, it explains that their translations are not required to be "equivalent" to ST.Therefore, the thesis proposes that Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang employ fluent and native English, and flexible translation strategies, attempt to spread Chinese culture. Their translation is adequate. At the same time, this thesis proves that Skopostheorie is applicable in describing and explaining the phenomenon and problems in fable translation. And it also enriches the translation theory.