Translation Strategies In English To Chinese Non-Fiction Autobiography Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The essence of all traslations including both pragmatic and literature translations is to appropriately express the idea and realize the function of the source text by using another language. Besides, literature translation is also characterized by artistic beauty. As a genre in the middle ground between pragmatic and literature text, non-fiction autobiography not only undertakes the informative task but also the expressive function. The Skopos Theory put forward by Hans J.Vermeer in1970s emphasizes that "the purpose of the translation determines the translation methods and strategies that are to be employed in order to produce a functionally adequate result". The former thinks that the translator should, to some extent, be free of the source text’s form, guided by the skopos theory to achieve the profound loyalty. This thesis chooses the translation of Killing Kennedy as the case for analysis. With a detailed discussion on the Skopos theory and the applications of specific translation methods according to different principles of Skopos theory, the thesis intends to analyze the instructiveness and limitation of the two theoretical models by using four strategies in real examples. A conclusion can be made in this thesis that the Skopos theory is instructive in non-fiction autobiography translation and also has some inevitable limitations in terms of specific applications.