A Study On The Fidelity Rule Of Skopos Theory In Novel Translation Based On The Three Essentials Of A Novel

As the core theory of German functionalism school,Skopos was proposed by the representative scholar of functionalism Hans J.Vermeer in 1970 s.It includes three rules: skopos rule,fidelity rule and coherence rule.Among them,skopos rule works as the leading rule,while the other two rules are subordinate rules.Compared with the traditional linguist translation theories,it takes translation as an action with certain intentions.Those intentions can include the writing purposes of the original work,translator’s translating purposes,readers’ basic information,etc.Thus,in Skopos Theory,if the translated works achieve the expected intentions,it can be taken as a successful one.Since the introduction of Skopos Theory to China in 1987,it has raised studies on it in academic world.Among the related studies,studies about the application of Skopos Theory to all kinds of translation have gained satisfying achievements,which provided the theoretical and practical foundation of the study of its application to literary translation.Gone with the wind written by American woman writer Margaret Mitchell is one of the most popular novels in the world.It tells a love story about the heroine Scarlet O’Hara during the Civil War.It is originally translated by the famous translator Mr.Fu Donghua.Since that,it has been translated by many translators,such as Dai Kan,Zhu Xiaoruo,Li Meihua,Huang Jianren,Jiang Chunxiang,etc.Of all the translated versions,Fu’s version is of the greatest impact,but it also is the most controversial one.Some people think that his translation,with fluent and elegant literary language,makes Gone with the wind effectively spread at that time,so it is a good translation work;while some people think that his translation is too alienated,especially the way of omitting much psychological descriptions violates the fidelity rule in translation.Thusit cannot be taken as a good translation work.However,most of the criticisms lack scientific theoretical basis.The prevail of Skopos theory in China provides a theoretical base for the interpretation and the objective evaluation of Fu’s version.Former studies of Fu Donghua’s translation of Gone with the wind based on Skopos Theory usually were conducted on three aspects.Fu’s version considered Margaret Mitchell’s writing skopos and other factors,such as target readers’ reading level,the preference of classical Chinese at that time,and press’ need of profits,so it conforms to the skopos rule.The whole story and characters are similar to the original work,so it conforms to the fidelity rule.Using domestication as the main translation strategy to make it coherent and readable,so it conforms to the coherence rule.Therefore,based on Skopos Theory,Fu Donghua’s version has rationality and should not be blindly criticized.However,the three essentials of a novel--characters,plot and environment,as the important reference of analyzing and appreciating novels have not arisen people’s enough attention in translation.And no one has discussed the fidelity of Fu’s version from the three essentials of a novel perspective.Therefore,this thesis discusses the fidelity of Fu’s version from the three essentials of a novel perspective based on Skopos Theory.Based on the study question that whether Fu’s version is faithful to the original work on the three essentials of a novel aspects,this thesis firstly reviewed the previous studies of Skopos Theory,Gone with the wind,Fu’s translated version of Gone with the wind and novel translation both at home and abroad.Then the theoretical framework of this thesis was introduced,including Skopos Theory,the three essentials of a novel and the standard of novel translation.Further based on Skopos Theory the comparative analysis was conducted,including the comparison of Margaret Mitchell’s writing intention and Fu Donghua’s translation purpose as well as the comparative analysis of the characters,plot,environment essential from both books.Finally conclusions were worked out that Fu’s version was basically faithful to the original work and during the process of applying Skopos Theory in novel translation,the fidelity to the three essentials of a novel should be obeyed.Besides that,during analyse,this thesis tries answering how to be faithful to the three essentials in novel translation.This studyconcerns both Chinese and English,which is helpful to the Chinese and English language learners.