Chinese Costume Translation From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With the increasing popularity of Chinese culture, more and more foreigners are keen about Chinese culture. Translation is one of the ways to spread Chinese traditional culture.Chinese traditional costume belongs to one of Chinese traditional culture. The rank of“Clothing, food, living and transportation” shows clothing is the most important part in Chinese people‘s daily life. Chinese traditional costume culture embodies Chinese traditional culture. The quality of translation can determine the extent to which foreigners can understand Chinese costume. In order to let more people understand the Chinese traditional culture,especially costume culture, translations in this field should be carried out. Chinese Clothing is an introductory book about Chinese costume, which presents costume features, patterns,styles, materials, and connotations in different dynasties. This book is collected by Ministry of Foreign Affairs to advocate Chinese traditional culture and then enhance the international status by “soft culture”. Chinese Clothing is an introductory book with a clear and definite purpose to spread Chinese costume culture. In this light, as the Skopos Theory is a very good theoretical framework applicable to different texts, non-literary texts in particular, it can offer reference to Chinese Clothing translation. The clear purpose of Chinese Clothing coincides with the theme of Skopos Theory. Therefore, in this paper the author plans to employ Skopos Theory to analyze Zhang lei and Yu Hong’s version.Skopos Theory is put forward by German Functionalist School, which holds that translation is like human activity with intended purpose rather than language-transfer. This theory contains three basic rules: skopos rule, coherence rule and fidelity rule, with “skopos rule” in the first place. During the translation process, we find, on skopos rules, the translators adopt pictures and substituting to popularize the essence on which the Chinese culture is based. With regards to coherence rule, conversing and interpretating are employed to cater to the target culture. Based on fidelity rule, the translators adopt transliterating to keep the Chinese unique culture intact,According to the comparison, translators employ different strategies to achieve its purpose. The translation has achieved the intended purposes: to infuse new culture(Chinese traditional culture) into target culture society, to pave the way for the better understanding of target readers. Chinese Clothing translation seen from the Skopos Theory may provide strategies for later translation about Chinese costume and a new perspective for studying costume.