A Comparative Study Of Two English Translations Of Ah Q Zheng Zhuan From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

This thesis is a comparative study of two English translations of Lu Xun’s Ah Q Zheng Zhuan, one by Yang Xianyi and his wife Gladys Yang and the other by Julia Lovell, from the functional perspective, particularly Skopos Theory, in terms of linguistics and culture.The thesis first analyzes the two versions at the textual level by exploring their translation purposes and translation briefs, and then examines them in terms of lexical usage by analyzing their translation strategies and the purposes behind them. It is found that the Yangs’main purpose is to present Ah Q Zheng Zhuan as it is and to introduce traditional Chinese culture to the Western readers. Thus they tend to adopt the strategy of foreignization. On the other hand, Lovelll’s main translation purpose is to introduce Lu Xun’s story as a literary work and his thought to the target readers, who are not familiar with Chinese culture. Consequently, she tends to adopt the strategy of domestication and her version is more fluent. Considering their purposes, we can see that both translations are adequate and successful. This research also shows that compared with traditional prescriptive translation theories which use single criterion to evaluate translations, Skopos Theory, which has different rules and covers the influence of more factors on translation, such as translation purpose, the initiator of the translation and the translator as well as the target readers, can assess a translation work more objectively.