A Study On Poetry Translation In Legends Of The Condor Heroes From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Shediao Yingxiong Zhuan is a masterpiece of Chinese martial arts novels,and the use of classical poetry is reasonable and appropriate.It can set the keynote,imply the content,shape the characters,render the environment and construct the plot.Poetry plays an essential role in the novel,allowing readers to fully experience the charm of Chinese classical poetry while appreciating the story.Since the publication of its first volume in 2018,Legends of the Condor Heroes has attracted extensive attention of English readers worldwide,but poetry translation has not yet come into scholars’ notice,and thus there is much room for discussion.For this reason,this study aims to analyze poetry translation in Legends of the Condor Heroes and summarize main translation strategies employed by translators.Since the emergence of functional theories of translation,the perspective of translation research has been shifted from linguistics and formal translation theory to a more functional,social and cultural direction.As the main theory,Skopos theory regards translation as a purposeful action,and translators should adopt appropriate translation strategies to achieve the specific purposes of the target text.In addition,Skopos theory holds that translation should follow three rules,namely Skopos rule,coherence rule,and fidelity rule.Based on these rules,this study analyzes the translation strategies of poems in Legends of the Condor Heroes and mistranslations that do not conform to the three rules.The research questions are as follows:(1)Based on the translation’s purposes,what translation strategies have the translators Anna Holmwood and Gigi Chang adopted in poetry translation of Legends of the Condor Heroes?(2)How do three rules of Skopos theory apply to the poetry translation in Legends of the Condor Heroes?(3)Are there any mistranslations of poems in Legends of the Condor Heroes that do not conform to the translation purposes? If yes,what are the reasons behind this and how to solve this problem?The study found that to achieve translation purposes,the translators have made use of six translation strategies,including paraphrase,substitution,amplification,omission,adaptation and literal translation.Under the guidance of the Skopos rule,a)paraphrase can be adopted to help western readers understand the meaning of allusions clearly and easily;b)substitution of images can overcome target readers’ cultural obstacles and increase the comprehensibility of the translated text;c)amplification can provide more background information to target readers and help them better understand the meaning and the function of the poems;d)omission can reduce readers’ reading burden and avoid tedious translation.Under the guidance of the coherence rule,adaptation is suggested to maintain reading fluency.Under the guidance of the fidelity rule,translators can adopt literal translation to retain the images,rhetoric and form as much as possible.However,some of the mistranslations are not in line with the translation purposes.They are caused by the translators’ lack of a thorough understanding of the cultural meaning of Chinese and comprehensive analysis of a poem’s content and emotion.Therefore,all translators should carefully study the functions of poems introduced by the original writers,the emotions expressed in the original poems and the cultural factors before translating.