skopos theory——目的论

A Review of the Application and Study of Functionalist Skopos Theory in China Skopos theory is the core of the German Functionalist translation theory. It has been more than ten years since functionalist skopos theory was first introduced into China. Great achievements have been made in its introduction, application and study. Though greatly approved, it also faces doubts and criticisms from the Chinese translation circle. Those in favor of the theory translate and introduce the theory to people and apply it to various translation practices while the critics points out its demerits from different angles. The reasons why skopos theory is so greatly approved are as follows: it is target text-oriented, and is not confined to “faithfulness”; it has a strong capability of explaining the irregular translation phenomena. And its criticisms result from the weaknesses of the theory itself. Since the skopos theory was first introduced into China, the articles and studies about it spring up like mushrooms after rain. These studies concern the definition of translation, translation criteria, translation criticism, translation teaching, translation strategy, literary and non -literary translation, etc. In recent years, many articles combine the skopos theory with other theory; even compare the skopos theory with the Chinese traditional translation theory, such as Zhou Mengzhen’s Skopos Theory and Faithfulness, Expressiveness and Elegance—Comparison of the Two Translation Theory from East and West. Through the comparison of the similarities and differences of the two theories and analysis of their own characteristics, the author proposed that skopos theory is a theoretical system which is purpose-oriented and with a diversified translation criteria. While Yan Fu’s theory is more abstract, vague and subjective. The two theories have similarity in pursuing fidelity, coherence and adaptation of readers, but differ in translation criteria and importance of translator. The application of skopos theory on translation teaching is also a cause for concern. Typical examples are The Construction of Translation Textbooks from the Perspective of Skopos Theory and Functionalist Skopos Theory and Translation Teaching in China. Authors make researches and analysis for the domestic translation teaching and then put forward precious suggestion and opinions. Retrieving the keyword “skopos theory” in CNKI, limiting the time from 2005 to 2013, we find 1156 results. Researches on skopos theory rise obviously in the past eight years. The published papers present an increasing trend year by year. This means that skopos theory attracts more and more scholars’ attention in China. Particularly in 2012, the published papers is as high as 248. Skopos theory receives a lot of publicity and is widely used in all kinds of field. Constantly produced relevant papers are best instances to illustrate this point. Analyzing these skopos theory papers as a whole, we can find huge difference in the types of research. The number of papers about translation strategy is as high as 82%, in which the non-literary researches are 80% and the literary researches are 2%. By contrast, papers relevant translation criticisms are 15%, while the translation theory and translation teaching related papers are 5%. These figures suggest that there has been an intensified interest in translation strategy in the domestic skopos theory research and the non-literary field is predominant. It shows that Chinese scholars focus on how the skopos theory used as translation strategy in non-literary text, while the application of skopos theory in translation theory, criticisms and teaching are less. All these papers fall into three categories: judgment, application and research. The first category mainly discusses the introduction, dissemination and judgment of skopos theory. The application papers analyze some typical texts under the perspective of skopos theory. The last category analyzes the skopos theory in deep and makes a combination with other translation theory. The first two categories are superior in number, which are 38% and 42%. However, the research papers make up only a small proportion. It indicates that the domestic research about skopos theory develop unbalanced. Research about skopos theory injects fresh energy to our translation research, but we cannot afford to ignore the problem in it. Firstly, the research has not been systemized and the content and angle are a bit pale. The research of skopos theory in translation criticisms, theory and teaching are comparatively of lack. Moreover, the research range is narrow. We only narrowed our sight on the quotation of several important principles and concepts of skopos theory, but ignored the discussion and expand the importance of skopos theory in original text and literary translation. The last but not the least, the imbalance of research types is worthy of our attention. Papers about judgment and application outnumber the research papers. And many papers just focus the superficial phenomenon rather than discern the essence. Only the comprehensive and systematic research and the substantial evidence analysis can make a better understanding of skopos theory.