A Study On The Translation Of Higher Ground: Biography Of Wiley B. Glass,Missionary To China From The Perspective Of Skopostheorie

Higher Ground: Biography of Wiley B. Glass, Missionary to China is a biography ofWiley B. Glass—a missionary to Hwanghsien in Yantai, Shandong province. It waswritten by his daughter Eloise Glass Cauthen, telling of the story of how Wiley B. Glassbecame a missionary in China and how he tried to widely spread Gospel as well as helpout the poor, the sick, and the wounded, etc. in the famine and war stricken areas in China.It offers the opportunity for the readers to learn something about western culture. Mostimportant of all, it records a lot of information for studying the history of Hwanghsien andother parts of China.This report discusses the Chinese version of chapter3to chapter6in Higher Ground,under the guidance of Skopostheorie. According to Skopostheorie, translation is apurposeful intercultural action. Skopostheorie simplified as “the end justifies the means”emphasizes on the intention of the original author, the translator and the text readers.Translation methods or strategies should be determined by the intended function of thetarget text. Based on the Skopostheorie, Higher Ground is studied and analyzed from theperspectives of the structure features and content features. Now that biography is thecombination of history and literature, it requires that translator should not only payattention to authenticity but literariness. Moreover, when the translator demonstrates theauthenticity and literary style of the original, she/he also has “creative” processing on theoriginal text due to his/her own literary competence, value of taste and the environmentshe/he lives in. The report mainly compares and analyzes the source text Higher Ground,by examples from the aspect of style and feature of the language and by means of variousand flexible translation strategies, the original purpose for the translation the book isachieved and the receiver and reader—Ms. Qu Changzheng, a historian of Hwanghsienwill find it easy to accept the target text and understand the profound meaning of thesource text.