The Possibility Of Multi-values In Fairy Tales Translation Under The Skopostheorie

The skopostheorie of the functional school has been paid much attention to since its birth in German in 1970s. It focuses on the "skopos" and has re-defined the nature of translation, making the standards of valuating translation more diversified. Under the skopotheorie, translation is re-defined as a communicative behavior of human beings with specific aims and intentions. The whole translating behavior is decided by the skopos of translation. It has allowed the translators to apply different translating methods and strategies in the process of translating behavior based on different skopos.Fairy tale, as a kind of literature, possesses the same artistic features and aesthetic values as common literature does. The translating of foreign fairy tales in China has established the "children-orientation" tendency since the May Fourth Movement, when translators began to translate them only for children’s sake. Following that, most of the studies of the fairy tales translation in China have targeted on children merely. Children’s expectations and their needs for reading have long been the main consideration that translators take into when translating the originals. However, what should be noticed is that many foreign fairy tales have great aesthetic and artistic values on literary level. Only considering children’s cognitive abilities and expectations when translating them may probably sacrifice their artistic values as translators sometimes need to use concise languages to simplify the contents. Fairy tales, as a kind of literature with dense flavor of romanticism, appeal to some adult readers as well. Besides, many scholars who read fairy tales for literary studies are also in need of Chinese versions which retain the aesthetic and artistic colors of the originals. Therefore, the study of translating fairy tales should not restrict within the scope of children neither. The translating of fairy tales should not only show their basic value of benefiting children, but also should reflect their coherent aesthetic value as a kind of literature.This thesis has proved the possibility that the translating of fairy tales could embody both the basic value of serving children and coherent aesthetic value of originals. Under the skopotheorie, the "translating of fairy tales" is defined as "a behavior of the translators with intentions". This behavior includes the "initiation", the "process" and the "consequence" of translating. The cause-and-effect relationship among them is the key point of this thesis to explore. The different values of fairy tales expressed in the different translations are the consequences. Their causes come from the initiations of the translating action, in which translators determined their different target readers and translating skopos, which then decide their different handling processes when translating.In this thesis, the two Chinese versions of Wilde’s fairy tale The Nightingale and the Rose, i.e. Lin Huiyin’s version and Ba Jin’s version, are taken as examples to analyze the different behaviors of translating fairy tales within the framework of skopostheorie. A reasonable explanation is given under the skopotheorie of why the two versions are different in forms, contents and expressive effects. Ba Jin’s version is concise and common, realizing fairy tales’basic value of benefiting children. Lin Huiyin’s version is full of literary grace, manifesting the coherent aesthetic values of fairy tales in literary level. Both versions’existences are proved reasonable under the skopostheorie. The evaluating of the two versions is not to discuss which version is more faithful and equivalent to the source text. Given the different skopos in their translating behaviors, both versions are excellent Chinese versions of the original since they all meet the expectations of their different target readers.