论文总字数：29729字

摘 要

二十世纪七十年代，德国学者弗米尔提出翻译目的论。目的论摆脱了对等理论的束缚，将翻译研究的焦点集中在翻译过程中依据不同的翻译目的对翻译策略的选择上，为翻译领域的研究提供了一种崭新的视角。自从罗琳女士在2003年推出魔幻系列小说的第一部《哈利波特与魔法石》成功之后，又接连推出六部《哈利波特》系列作品,并赢得了世界的赞誉。这系列小说也同样深受中国小读者们的喜爱，除了作品本身令人着迷的情节之外，也少不了优秀的翻译。目前国内的译本有两个：一个是人民文学出版社的译本，一个是台湾皇冠出版社的译本。本文从翻译目的论的视角出发，以《哈利波特与魔法石》两个中文译本作为案例,对人名、咒语以及其他专有名词的翻译进行对比,分析他们是否都把译本的可读性视为翻译活动的最终目标。

关键词：目的论；哈利波特与魔法石；对比分析；儿童文学

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 2

3. Skopos Theory 2

3.1 Development of Skopos Theory 2

3.2 Three basic rules 4

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone And Its Two Chinese Versions 4

4.1 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and its author 4

4.2 Mainland version 5

4.3 Taiwan version 6

5. Comparative Study of Noun Phrases’ Translation in Two Chinese versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone 6

5.1 Translation of names 6

5.2 Translation of spells 8

5.3 Translation of other proper nouns 10

6. Conclusion 11

Works Cited 13

1. Introduction

With the growth of society, the education of children has attracted increasing attention from the public. The emergence of children’s literature enables children to accept and appreciate literary works. As a children’s literary work, it is beyond our imagination that Harry Potter series is very popular among the readers all over the world. Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone, the earliest volume of this series, was published on June 26, 1997.

The main audiences of children’s literature translation are children, which means the translated literary works should be readable for children. For children’s limited level of cognition and language, translators should make dynamic use of various translation strategies to help children understand the translated works precisely. Therefore, Skopos Theory can be chosen as the guidance of translating children’s literature.

Skopos theory (German: Skopostheorie), a concept from the field of translation, provides the translator with new insights into the nature of translation or the ultimate purpose of translation. Someone finds that the word “Skopos” is from Greek. Skopos Theory belongs to the German Functionalist Translation Theory. This theory, created by the two German linguists Hans Vermeer and Katharina Reiss, holds that the translator should take into account the purpose of the target text in the process of translation.

This passage is divided into six parts. The first part overall introduces the whole passage. The second part is the brief introduction to the relevant studies about this topic. The third part specifically presents the development process of Skopos Theory and the definition of its three rules. The fourth part introduces the synopsis of Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone, its author and two Chinese versions of this book. The fifth part compares the differences of noun phrases between the mainland version and Taiwan version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone and tries to analyze their advantages and the disadvantages. The last part makes a conclusion of this study.

2. Literature Review

Since Skopos Theory was introduced into China in 1987, countless articles on it have sprang up at home. Related studies are mainly concerned with definition of translation , literary translation, non-literary translation (including tourism translation, trademark translation, advertising translation, film title translation, translation of traditional Chinese medicine literature), university website translation, news translation, legal translation and other topics. In recent years, many articles have done some research by combining Skopos theory with other theories, and many relevant works have come into existence.

Before writing this thesis, the author checked the related data on CNKI. Up to present, there are about 230000 articles on translation study. While the range of retrieval data focused on the study of Skopos Theory, the number reduced to about 7500. The number of the theses on the study of Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone from the perspective of Skopos Theory is only 8. In the meanwhile, the author found that the data shows a decreased trend of research on Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone. By combining Skopos Theory with Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone, many scholars make great efforts to explore the translation of children’s literature. On English-Chinese Translation of Children’s Literature from the Perspective of the Skopostheorie A Case Study of Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone written by Jiang Nan in 2010 proved that Skopos Theory is a good choice to guide the translation of Children’s literature. But few experts try to make a comparative study of the two Chinese versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone from the perspective of Skopos theory and attempt to find out the best translation strategies for children’s literature. Therefore, it is obvious that translators should attach more emphasis to the research in this field.

3. Skopos Theory

3.1 Development of Skopos Theory

The functionalist translation theory was developed in the 1970s in German. The main contributions and the contributors are Katharina Reiss with her functionalist translation criticism; Hans J. Vermeer’s Skopos theory and its extensions; Justa Holz-Manttari’s theory of translational action and Christiane Nord. They are all German scholars, so we call it “German school of functionalism”. (Nord, 1997:4)

Early in 1971, in her book Possibilities and Limits of Translation Criticism, Reiss developed a model of translation criticism based on the functional relationship between source and target texts.(Nord, 1997:5) Reiss’s theory is based on the concept of equivalence, but from her translation practice, she draws a conclusion that equivalence is not the best results in some cases, especially when the communicative function of the source text is not consistent with that of the target text. At this time, it is the readability of the target text, not the pursuit of equivalence, that is required to be taken into consideration. Reisss’s research focuses on the connotation equivalence between the origin and target texts, which lays a solid foundation for the development of Skopos Theory.

Vermeer, once the student of Reiss, is also an important and famous theorist during the progress of German functionalism development. He expands the main content of Skopos Theory and treats the spiritual resemblance of the target text as the most important element to consider. Vermeer thinks that translation process should follow the three rules: skopos rule, intertextual coherence rule and intratextual coherence rule. Skopos rule is the first among them. What’s more, Vermeer puts forward the concept of translation commission. It is the translator that makes choices about whether, when and how to accomplish the translation practice. It can be seen that Vermeer completely jumped out of the equivalent theory and advocated breaking the shackles of the source text and focusing on the function of the text. He proposed that the content of Skopos Theory should be based on the fact that translation is a purposeful act in a specific situation. Therefore, translation strategies must be employed flexibly to achieve the communicative purpose of the target text on the basis of the different situation and the purpose of the text.

Afterward, Christiane Nord summarized all these theories and made them more comprehensive by her book Translaitng As a Purposeful Activity-Functionalist Approaches Explained. However, she also pointed out some limitations of Skopos Theory.

3.2 Three basic rules

Three rules of the Skopos theory is skopos rule,coherence rule and fidelity rule.

Skopos rule is the top rule among the three rules. Vermeer explains the Skopos rule in the following way: Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The Skopos rule thus reads as follows: translate/interpret in a way that enables your text translation to function as the original one does. (Nord, 2001: 29) Translation practice can have multiple purposes. In this case, translators should change methods to adapt to different communicative purposes.

Coherence Rule, or called Intratextual Coherence Rule, shows that in order to achieve the purpose of communication, the translator should make target readers understand the translated text in the target culture environment.

Fidelity Rule, also known as Intertextual Coherence Rule. It does not only mean the greatest imitation to the source text, but also mean the pursuit of the core relation between the source text and target text. And then, translators should be faithful to this relation. Fidelity Rule is restrained by the other two rules in some ways, which means if we do not have to insist fidelity rule when come across the others.

The three rules are organized based on their status. The fidelity rule is considered to be subordinate to the coherence rule. Both of them are subordinate to the Skopos rule. So, the translator should firstly concern about the purpose of translation. If the Skopos requires a change of function, the standard will no longer be evaluated by intertextual coherence with the source text but the adequacy or appropriateness with regard to the Skopos (Reiss and Vermeer, 1984: 139).

4. Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone And Its Two Chinese Versions

4.1 Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and its author

Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone is a fantasy fiction written by British author J. K. Rowling. It is the first novel in the Harry Potter series and Rowling"s debut novel. This book tells a story about Harry Potter, a young boy who lived unhappily with his aunt—Dursley family. On the day of his eleventh birthday, he receives a letter of acceptance to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where his parents once attended. Since then, his whole life has changed. Harry makes close friends and several enemies during his first year at school. With the help of his friends, Harry faces an attempted comeback by the dark wizard Lord Voldemort, who killed Harry"s parents, but failed to kill Harry when he was only 15 months old.

The book was first published in London in 1997 by Bloomsbury Children’s Book. In 1998, it was published in the USA by Scholastic Press under the title Harry Potter and the Sorcerer"s Stone. It won most of the British book awards judged by children and some other awards in the US. It has been translated into at least 73 other languages, and has been made into a feature-length film of the same name, as have all six of its sequels.

The author of Harry Potter series,J.K. Rowling is a wonderful fiction writer. In 1990, on a train from Manchester to London, for no paper at hand, Rowling wrote down a wonderful idea on a napkin. That is the origin of Harry Potter series. In the later process of writing, Rowling often go to the cafes in Edinburgh, in order to save heating costs. In 1995, Harry Potter and the Philosopher"s Stone was finished. Rowling went to many publishers for asking them to publish this book. And she was rejected by twelve publishers. Finally, a small publisher agreed to give her a chance, so that we can see this wonderful series nowadays.

4.2 Mainland version

The first mainland Chinese version of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone was published by People’s Literature Publishing House in September, 2000. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was the last volume of the series, whose mainland Chinese version was published in October,2007. This version is translated by Su Nong, which is the shortened name of the two translators—Cao Suling and Ma Ainong. They took one part from each of their names and formed them into the pen name “Su Nong”. This Chinese version of Harry Potter is widely accepted by children and teenagers all over the Chinese mainland.

4.3 Taiwan version

The Harry Potter series also won a great success in Taiwan. The first traditional Chinese version of the first volume in the Harry Potter series was published in Taiwan by Crown Publishing Company Limited in July, 2000. It was two months earlier than the release of the simple Chinese version. Then the Taiwan Chinese version of the seventh volume was published in October, 2007, of the total 7 volumes and the translator of the first four volumes was Peng Chien-wen. Peng Chien-wen is also a skilled translator, she had translated many books, including Jack Maggs by Peter Carey, Neither Here Nor There-Travels in Europe by Bill Bryson, Schindler’s List by Thomas Keneally, and so on.

5. Comparative Study of Noun Phrases’ Translation in Two Chinese versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone

To make a comparison between two versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, this part will analysis from three aspects: the translation of names, spells and other proper nouns.

5.1 Translation of names

All these names in the sheet above carry the metaphors of Greek and Roman mythology: the “Malfory” family appears in the novel as a villain, “Draco Malfoy” is Harry’s nemesis, his name is “Draco” ,in Latin it means “snake”.In western culture,the image of snake is evil. In the seventh century BC, a man named “Draco” compiled a very strict code, so the word “Draconian” also means harsh and cruel. In the novel,Draco is proud and rude, bullies muggles, often against Harry.The name “Malfoy” comes from French word “malfoi”, which means disloyalty and reminds people that the Malfoy family are death eaters and follow Voldemort closely. The choice of the word “跩哥·马份” is very interesting. His surname “马份”and the homonym “马粪” gives people a sense of humor, and people can"t help wondering whether the family with this surname is a good person. One of the “跩”remind us of the high-spirited manner of walking, very consistent with his image in the novel—bossy and indomitable. The mainland version translates it into “德拉科·马尔福”, which is transliterated from the original text, trying to cater to the habits of Chinese readers.

The original name for "Voldemort" is “Tom Marvolo Riddle”, who hated the name “Tom Marvolo Riddle”, thought that name was too common to have his muggle(non-magic folk) father’s surname. So the name was changed to “Voldemort”, which is actually a word game played by Rowling. The original name “Tom Marvolo Riddle” was transformed into “I am Lord Voldemort”. In French, the phrase “Voldemort” means “flee from death”. This powerful name matches his image in the novel, who tried to take control of the Wizarding world by manipulating the festering relationship between pureblood and Muggle-born wizards, and he did escape from death again and again. So, which one is more appropriate translation, “佛地魔” or “伏地魔”? “佛” means Buddha, and “魔” means devil. Using both“佛” and “魔” may have a sense of dislocation, which makes it difficult for target readers to grasp the image of "Voldemort", and the word “伏地” means prostrate on the ground, which seems to indicate his ending of death and is more appropriate.

“Hermione”, pronounced from “Hermes”, one of the twelve Greek gods of Olympians. “Hermes” is the messenger of the gods, sending messages between the Zeus and the gods. As a messenger, he had to understand Zeus precisely, a process of translation and interpretation, from which the term “Hermeneutics” was later interpreted. As a result, the character “Hermes” is clever, savvy. He invented a great number of things in Greek mythology, such as alphabet, astronomy, mathematics, etc. Hermione’s role in the book bears a lot of resemblance to “Hermes”,such as clever, love to learn, know a lot of magic tips. Her friends, Harry and Ron, always ask Hermione for help when they have a problem, and she can always come up with some solutions. Hermione is translated into "妙丽" and "赫敏" . The former can express that she is a smart girl, the latter shows her agility. Both of them are good choices.

Translators take the target language as a guide and make efforts to lighten the burden on readers. Taiwan version is more likely to consider the issue of acceptability , which is different from the mainland’s emphasis on the domestication of adequacy. Most of the translated names are translated by the Chinese character of last name , and the corresponding characters are chosen according to the characters’ role settings in the novel to add reading effect, and sometimes it is worth studying.

5.2 Translation of spells

In best-selling novels, the spell is artificial, both in the original text and in the target text, is only a tool to promote the development of the plot, so there are few examples of translators using only the method of transliteration. And the choice of this method is mainly to adapt to the needs of the special context.

The “Wingardium Leviosa” spell literally shows two English roots, wing-(wings) and levi-(rise), which are used to hover objects, and the movement of the arm and the recitation of the mantra are very important. Ron often misreads the spell while learning it and is corrected by Hermione. Therefore, in order to be accurate, the translator adopted a complete transliteration and translated it as “羽加迪姆勒维奥萨”, so that the two people’s pronunciation mistakes and corrections are more accurate. It is worth mentioning that, in this case, the relevant plot is very helpful to the reader’s understanding, and also dispell the difficulty of transliteration. In Taiwan version, this spell is translated as “温加癫啦唯啊萨”. It didn’t reveal every syllable, what’s more, the mainland version translate “win(g)”as “羽”, “羽” means “feather”. It is more accurate in the way of showing the meaning of this spell.

“Alohomora” is a charm that causes a locked door to open.The term “Alohomora” comes from sikidy, a form of divination from the Malagasy people of Madagascar. It is the name of a magical figure, whose meaning is “favourable to thieves”. When the mainland translators handles this spell, they choose to transliterate “aloho” into “阿拉霍”, “洞开” generally refers to doors (windows, etc.)wide open, in this way can preserve the exotic style of the original text, and also indicate the use of the spell. The Taiwan version just transliterate this spell into “阿咯哈呣啦”, although readers can get the meaning from the context, it didn’t follow the skopos rule.

As one of the three principles of Skopos Theory, the coherence rule requires that the translation must conform with the principle of intralingual coherence. That means the translation must be readable to the target audience and make sense in the target language culture. Therefore, we should change the traditional translation method based on the principle and take the original text as its aim to take the original text off its crown. Most of the spells written by the author come from Latin roots, and it is easy for readers of English and Latin departments to guess or understand the functions or meanings of the spells.

“Petrificus totalus” is to make somebody"s body impenetrable like petrified. In Latin, “Patra” Means “stone”, and “ficus” is the past completion of the verb “factus” (to become) , so “Petrificus” means “turned to stone” and “totalus” means “complete”. The mainland version is “统统石化”,and the Taiwan version is “整整—石化”. The pronunciation of “统统” is “tong tong”,and it is also similar to the word “totalus”. Mainland translation adopts the method of free translation, and determines its target form as a four-character form, which is similar to Chinese idioms, and the language is simple, so that the Chinese readers can understand it at a glance. So the mainland version is more acceptable.

“Locomotor Mortis” is an enchantment which locks together the legs of the victim, making him or her unable to walk. In Latin words, “loco” means “from a place”, "motor" means “motion” and “mortis” means death. The mainland version “腿立僵停死”, also having rhythm, vividly shows an image of someone whose legs somehow stop and can’t move at all. The Taiwan version translated it as “榫头—失准”, which is hard for children to understand the real meaning of this phrase. Although the above text explain the spell, it doesn’t follow the coherence rule. So the mainland version is more appropriate.

5.3 Translation of other proper nouns

In Harry Potter Series, Hogwarts is a school for young wizards to learn witchcraft and wizardry. The school takes students from all over Great Britain, starting at the age of eleven. The students leave school after their seventh year. There are four houses in Hogwarts: Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw, and Slytherin. The Sorting Hat is to determine which of the four Houses each new student will enter. At the beginning of the start-of-term feast, it is placed on a three-legged (sometimes four-legged) stool in front of the Great Hall. Then, it sings a long-rambling song of introduction, which is different every year, but with the same basic information in it: how it was bewitched to perform the sorting and what the criteria are for the various houses. The first-year students place the Sorting Hat on their heads one by one. Within a minute, it loudly proclaims the house for which they are best suited. From the table above, the mainland version is “分院帽”, and the Taiwan version is “分类帽”. “分院帽”means it is a hat that used to decide new students to enter the suitable House. However, “分类帽” describes that the hat separate these new students into several categories, and this meaning is obviously not conform to the description of the original novel, which is not consist with fidelity rule. In a word, the mainland version is better for Chinese readers to understand.

The Mirror of Erised is a magnificent mirror, as high as a classroom ceiling, with an ornate gold frame, standing on two clawed feet. The inscription carved around the top read “Erised stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi”, which is “I show not your face but your heart’s desire”. When someone looks into it, they see the deepest and most desperate desire of their heart. “Erised” is the word “desire” spelled backwards. The word mirror comes from the Latin “mirare”, whose meaning is “look at”. The mainland version is “厄里斯魔镜”, which only shows that it is a magic mirror. “厄里斯” is transliterated from “Erised”. In the meanwhile, the Taiwan version translated it as “意若思镜”. “意若思” means that what you see in the mirror is what you think in the mind, sharing similarity with the description in the original novel. Through comparison, Taiwan version does follow Skopos Theory. And considering the taste of children, “意若思” is full of mystery, which can arouse their interest to finish reading this book.

6. Conclusion

The formation of Skopos theory has brought new breakthroughs to the study of translation criteria, which has guided translation theorists and translation practitioners to use new methods to study and explore translation standards from a new perspective. By studying the purpose of translation and the different needs of each participant in translation practice, the criterion of adequacy in Skopos Theory aims to facilitate the implementation of translation practice from a more comprehensive level, in order to create an ideal version. Under the guidance of the criterion of adequacy in Skopos Theory , the translator needs to establish a system of translation criteria before translation practice. After considering the different purposes and needs of the participants in translation practice and integrating all the factors, the translator adopts some relevant appropriate strategies for translating the source text. Original authors, translators and target recipients can all exert an influence on the selection of translation strategies. The criterion of adequacy in Skopos Theory in a given translation practice depends on whether the translator takes into account the needs and purposes of the target clients and audience. This standard frees translation from the traditional idea and shakes off the traditional standard that the quality of the translated works is evaluated only by comparing the target text with the original text. The criterion of adequacy in Skopos Theory has created a new field for the study of translation theory. Further researches and explorations are beneficial to the improvement of translation standards and the guidance of translation practice.

In the past fewer years, the study of language phenomena in the Harry Potter series has been carried out. To understand the magical world created by JK Rowling, it is imperative for readers to correctly understand the proper nouns embodied in the book. Therefore, this paper, on the basis of the two representative Chinese versions, analyzes the similarities, differences, advantages and disadvantages of the proper nouns in translation. Both of the two versions are intended to give target readers a vivid image of the original book, so it does not make a sense to judge which version is the better or worse of the two. The purpose of this paper is to compare the differences between different translations of proper nouns in Harry Potter series, so as to provide some guidance for the translation of similar literary works.

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