The Evaluation Of The Two English Versions Of The Art Of War Under The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

The Art of War has exerted a global influence on the modern world. It is regardedas a classic on stratagem by military experts, scholars and businessmen at home andabroad. Currently, there are more than forty English versions of this book. Amongthem, the general, Griffth's version has been accepted in the Chinese TranslationSeries of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization(UNESCO). And the literary translator, Minford's translation is also a masterpiecerendering. The two versions are characterized by different text styles, thematicstructures, cohesive ties, and ways of translating culture-loaded words. Both versionsare valid translations. It is an interesting question what the basis of evaluation is.Translation criticism, compared with translation practice, is obviously in anunderdeveloped stage. Skopostheorie values the communicative function of the targettext and emphasizes that the translation skopos determines translation process. Thekey of Skopostheorie is three Skopostheorie rules, namely, the skopos rule, thecoherence rule and the fidelity rule. The Skopos rule is the most important rule. It islaid down in the skopos rule that translation skopos determines translation process.The coherence rule requires that TT be meaningful in the TT culture. It is stated thatTT is supposed to be faithful to ST.Therefore, a feasible frame of reference for translation criticism is to beestablished in the current thesis. Skopostheorie serves as the evaluation framework forthe two selected versions of The Art of War. And the three Skopostheorie rules areused as the criteria of evaluation. Under the skopos rule, text style is the linguisticelements to be explored. Under the coherence rule, thematic structure and cohesiveties become the linguistic focus. When it comes to the fidelity rule, translation ofculture-loaded words is the cultural elements needed to examine. It is concluded thatvalid translations comply with the skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity ruleand different text styles, thematic structures, cohesive ties and ways of translatingculture-loaded words serve to achieve different skopoi.