A Translation Report Of General Hutong(Excerpt) From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

The text for translation is selected from General Hutong,a children’s novel by Shi Lei.It depicts a legendary story of old Beijingers who displayed loft moral courage during the War of Resistance against Japanese aggression with vivid and humorous language.This novel is featured by onomatopoeia,idioms,culture-loaded words and sentences emphasizing on parataxis and loose structure.It also covers many rhetorical devices like simile,personification and exaggeration in ways that ensure its interest and enlightenment.Given the preceding analysis of language features,this report applies Skopos Theory to practice,takes the features of children’s literature into account,and studies the translation of General Hutong from the lexical,syntactic and rhetoric aspects in detail.The following conclusions can be drawn:at the lexical level,the translator makes use of such methods as transliteration,literal translation,and annotation to translate onomatopoeia and words with Chinese culture connotations under the guidance of the Skopos rule,so that the original language style can be maintained to a great extent.Concerning the syntactic level,techniques like combination,free translation,reconstruction,and omission are chosen to obtain a coherent translation in ways that are consistent with the expression habits of foreign children.As to the rhetoric level,the translator adopts literal translation,amplification,and free translation,etc.,to make the target language fascinating and resonate with readersThe report consists of five parts.The first part introduces the project background,the source text and the significance of the translation.The second part describes the development of Skopos Theory and the feasibility of three rules of Skopos Theory in translation,and clarifies the target readers and characteristics of children’s literature.The third part is a process description,including preparations,the difficulties encountered in the translation process and proofreading.The fourth part is a detailed analysis of the typical translation examples from lexical,syntactic and rhetoric levels guided by Skopos Theory.In the last part,the translator summarizes outcomes and deficiencies in translation and hopes that will be conducive to the further study and research in Chinese children’s literature in the future.