论文总字数：40535字

摘 要

Chapter One Introduction 1

1.1 Research background 1

1.2 Purpose of the study 1

1.3 Organization of the thesis 2

Chapter Two Literature Review 3

2.1 Jin's brief introduction and his English version of works 3

2.2 Previous research on Minford’s translation of The Deer and the Cauldron 3

2.3 Research gap 5

Chapter Three Theoretical Framework 6

3.1 Introduction to skopos theory 6

3.2 Translation strategies in skopos theory 7

3.3 Rules of translation in skopos theory 8

Chapter Four Analysis of the Translation of swear words 9

4.1 Analysis of the translation of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron 9

4.2 Results 12

4. 3 Discussion 15

Chapter Five Conclusion 17

5.1 Summary of Major Findings 17

5.2 Significance of the Study 17

5.3 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research 19

References 20

Acknowledgments

I would like to express my gratitude to all those who helped me during the writing of this thesis.

My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to my supervisor, Dr. Xiang Mingjian, for his constant encouragement and guidance. In the preparation of the thesis he has spent much time reading through each draft and provided me with inspiring advice. Without his consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form.

Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Prof. Bao Gui, Ms. Hu Aihua, and Dr. Sun li, from whose devoted teaching and enlightening lectures I have benefited a lot and academically prepared for the thesis.

Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis.

Abstract

Swear words are an important part of almost all languages in the world and are used to give vent to their emotions, such as grief, anger or occasionally ecstasy. Indeed, swear words play an indispensable role in our daily interaction. This is also reflected in creative writings. A great many swear words are included in the well-known novel, The Deer and the Cauldron, which was written by Jin Yong and these swear words can hardly be understood by the foreign readers. These swear words mostly used by the protagonist Wei Xiaobao are either imbued with dialectal features or have multiple interpretations under different circumstances, which make them difficult for foreign readers and pose challenges for translators.

This thesis examines Minford’s translation of Wei Xiaobao’s swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron from the perspective of skopos theory to sum up his frequently-used translation strategies. It is found that Minford generally follow the principle of fidelity and the principle of coherence in his translation and that he combines the principle of fidelity and the principle of loyalty to achieve his translation purpose. And the principle of loyalty is a great important role in Minford’s translation of Wei Xiaobao’s swear word. It is expected that the research findings can serve as reference for professionals working on the translation of martial arts novels.

Key words: skopos theory, swear words, translation strategy; The Deer and the Cauldron

摘要

粗话是世界上几乎所有语言中都存在的现象。人们可以用粗话来宣泄自己的情感，表达悲伤、愤怒抑或喜悦。毋庸讳言，粗话在我们日常交际中的一部分，这一点在文学创作中也有体现。金庸先生的作品《鹿鼎记》中就包含有大量的粗话。由于这些粗话有的是方言里特有的表达，有的则在不同场合下可以有不同的含义，因此外国人很难理解其中的含义，对于译者来说也构成较大的挑战。

本文以目的论为理论依据，对《鹿鼎记》闵福德译本中韦小宝粗口的翻译进行分析考察，并在此基础上归纳总结出闵福德在翻译韦小宝粗口时所用的翻译策略和翻译技巧.本研究发现在翻译过程中闵福德教授总体上遵循了目的论下的忠实性原则以及连贯性原则，并在翻译过程中将忠实性和忠诚性原则相结合来达到翻译的目的。需要指出的是，在闽福德翻译韦小宝粗话的过程中忠诚性原则起到了关键性作用。本文的研究发现可供从事武侠小说英译的专业人士参考。

关键词: 目的论；粗语；翻译策略；《鹿鼎记》

Chapter One Introduction

Research background

Swear words are an important part of almost all languages in the world and it is common that both adults and children use swear words to give vent to their emotions, such as grief or anger. Indeed, swear words play an indispensable role in our daily interaction. This is also reflected in creative writings. A great many swear words are included in the well-known novel, The Deer and the Cauldron, which was written by Jin Yong and these swear words are rich in linguistic and socio-cultural background and consequently pose no small challenge for foreign readers. So, it is really hard to translate accurately the swear words in the novel.This thesis intends to explore how the swear words by the protagonist Wei Xiaobao in the novel are translated by examining John Minford’s translation from the perspective of skopos theory.

As an indispensable part of daily communication, swear words can not only reflect a person’s socio-cultural background, but also highlight a person’s personality. Wei Xiaobao, the protagonist in Jin Yong’s novel The Deer and the Cauldron, reveals his character, background and even mentality through the use of swear words. Wei Xiaobao’s character is well described by teh swear words in the whole novel. Translating these swear words into English is a huge challenge, because it contains a lot of unique Chinese culture, and this challenge is also an important reason for my interest in the topic. My interest pushes me to study and analyze the swear words translated in professor Minford’s (1997) English translation of The Deer and the Cauldron, and on this basis summarize the translation strategies and skills frequently used by Wei Xiaobao in translating swear words, so as to make some contributions to the translation of martial arts novels.

1.2 Purpose of the study

In this thesis, I examine Minford’s (1997) translation of Wei Xiaobao’s swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron. These include the swearing words in dialect, swearing words in specific situations, harmonics of swearing words, and mantra swearing words. This thesis aims to study how Minford has translated Wei Xiaobao’s swear words into English. More specifically, it investigates what translation principles under the perspective of skopos theory has been followed and what translation strategies have been adopted.

1.3 Organization of the thesis

This thesis is composed of five chapters:

The backdrop and the aim of this thesis are provided in the first Chapter. Chapter Two is literature review. First, it introduces the background of Jin Yong and the English translation of his novels. Second, previous scholars’s study on the target story is presented here.Lastly, it presents the research gap in the current studies of the translation of swear words.

Skopos theory, whose rules of translation and other translation strategies are all showed in detail in Chapter Three.

Chapter Four presents an analysis of typical instances of the translation of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron.

Chapter Five concludes the study. At the beginning, a conclusion of the most common fruits from the research is listed. Second, it presents the theory, methodology implication of the current study. Lastly, it lists the limitations and suggestions for further study.

Chapter Two Literature Review

This chapter gives the introduction to the background of Jin Yong and the English version of his novels and reviews previous research on Minford’s translation of The Deer and the Cauldron.

2.1 Jin’s brief introduction and his English version of works

Jin Yong, whose real name is Zha Liangyong, is a successful martial arts novelist, and it is fitting to consider him as a master of popular literature. He has greatly improved the ideological, cultural and artistic taste of traditional martial arts novels, including strong cultural flavor, rich historical knowledge and profound national spirit. With his artistic practice, he made modern martial arts novels enter the palace of literature for the first time, which was a quiet literary revolution.

At present, there are several English translations of Jin Yong’s martial arts novels, for instance, “Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain” by Olivia Mok (1993), “The Deer and the Cauldron” by John Minford (1997), “The Book and the Sword” by Graham Earnshaw (2005), and “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” by Anna Holmwood (2018).

2.2 Previous research on Minford’s translation of The Deer and the Cauldron

Minford’s translation of The Deer and the Cauldron is haed to find for its scarcity. Lv Zongli (1999) analyzed Wei Xiaobao’s use of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron by taking into account of his social-cultural background. He found that the swear words not only help present Wei Xiabao’s image, but also reveals his origin and cultural background. What’s more, the swear words also helps to highlight the image of Wei Xiabao, advance the plot of the novel, adjust the mood of the story, and make a “living, fresh jump” civic hero from the page. It means that the translation of swear words are more relevant to the place where Wei Xiaobao were born, obtained the local culture and formed the personalities.

Chen Gang (2006) argues that “naturalization” will be a major and overall strategy. It is based on the objective description of translation practice, including the function or purpose of translation and the translator’s view of translation, decision-making in translation practice, translation norms, etc. What’s more, whether to accept cultural difference is the key of cultural communication.

Wu Yuguang (2010) , who spent lots of his efforts studying the translation of Wei Xiaobao’s language in The Deer and the Cauldron with Functional Translation Theory, found that Minford uses a dozen damnations such as ‘Tuck them’, ‘my arse’, ‘rotten turtle’, ‘Turtle-spawn’, ‘Hot-piece tamardy’, etc. At times, Minford’s usage of some English expression to interpret Chinese expressions which not only fulfil the expressive force of the translation, but also can properly reflect the original pragmatic function, which conforms to the principle of “function plus loyalty” advocated by the functional translation school. However, his research, focusing on gags, idioms and language use in different contexts, does not adequately explain the cultural reasons for the translation strategy Minford adopted.

Wu Yuguang (2011) took the translation of the novel’s protagonist Wei Xiaobao as the object of study, and through the analysis of representative instances of translated text sentences, found that Minford attaches great importance to the cultural conflicts reflected in English and Chinese and the receptivity of the English readers. In his translation of Wei Xiaobao’s language, he mostly adopted communicative translation mode where there were cultural conflicts, and took the method of literal and free transalrion to translate teh original text, so as to ensure the original information is well transmitted. This paper holds that the translation mode and strategy adopted by the translator in translating texts with unique cultural meanings are closely related to his translation purpose, his attitude towards the two cultures, his understanding of the cultural background and receptivity of the target language readers and other factors. Minford has reproduced chinese culture with great faith in his translation of The Deer and the Cauldron, creating a classic text to well spread Chinese culture.

2.3 Research gap

Minford’s translation of Jin Yong’s novel The Deer and the Cauldron has been highly recognized at home and abroad. It was him who upgrade the render of The Deer and the Cauldron into a greater layer. However, there are only a few articles on Minford’s translation of swear words in the novel. Some articles only concentrate on sole aspect of swear words translation (e.g., cultural underpinning or contextual use), while others discuss the translation strategies adopted (e.g., domestication and foreignization). It is apparent that researcher have failed to recognize that there is a close link between the translation purpose and the adoption of translation strategies.

Chapter Three Theoretical Framework

This chapter reports skopos theory from the source and the development and describes the primary principle and concrete content of skopos theory. Besides, it gave an introduction to some important factors that are involved with the purpose of translation.

3.1 Introduction to skopos theory

As a kind of frequently used translation theory, Skopos theory has its own special structure, which is involved with original language and translation methods. Skopos theorists believe that all translation activities should regard the principle of purpose as the guidance, which means the translation should be developed in a direction that satisfies the needs of readers, considering aspects of culture and context. The procedure of rendering plays an crucial part in realizing the purpose .

The term ‘Skopos’ comes from the Greek and is used to refer to the purpose (Pan Pingliang 2006; Li Huikun 2003; Bian Jianhua 2006). Functional translation theory first occurred in 1970 and its born pace is Germany. Katharina Rice (1971) is the first one who put forward functional translation and developed a translation system involved with original language and translation methods. Then, he established the basic form of functionalism. Hans Vermeer(1989), who has gained experience from previous researchers, put forward skopos theory and create a new translation world. The theory he put forward not only escapes the limitation of previous source-centered theory, but also provides a good venue to study translation for the later researchers. Justa Holz Manttari (1981), connecting communication theory with behavior theory, created another translation method. He put forward translation behavior theory and enriched its content. Besides, he inherited and developed functional translation theory. He implies that people’s interaction with others are out of some aims and achievements.

Kristina Nord (2001) summarizes and further develops the functionalist theory, which holds that translation is a purposeful activity based on the original text and must be carried out through negotiation. Translation must stick to the rules which meet the purposes. Besides, translation should base on intralingual and interlingual coherence. Intralingual coherence points out that the coherence in translation must be internal, which can be easily understood by the recipient. Interlingual coherence points out that the key thing existing between the original text and the translation is coherence.

After these three principles are put forward, the criterion for judging the quality of the translation is no longer “equivalence”, but the adequacy of the translation to achieve the expected goal.

In the structure of skopos theory, the audience are not only the decisive role that decide the purpose of translation, but also are the receivers that the translation serves for. Different culture’s viewers should be provided typical translation except for the purpose of exchanging ideas. So, translation is a process, in which the purpose is produced and the key role is the target audience.

3.2 Translation strategies in skopos theory

To meet the ideal way of translation from target language receiver, the translation ought to have its effect in culture and the target language context. The target decides the procedure, which is equivalent to that results influenced by methods. However, various purposes are included in translation process, which are listed as follows: the fundamental goal of translators(e.g., making a living); the communicative purpose of the translation(e.g., enlightening the readers); different types of translation ways are taken to achieve goals. However, in general, “purpose” refers to the communicative purpose of the target text, that is, “the communicative function of the target text in the socio-cultural context of the target language for the target language reader” (Venuti 2001: 196). Therefore, the translator should define his specific purpose in a given translation context, and according to this purpose, decide what translation method to adopt, be it literal translation, free translation or some other else. This kind of translation aims to maximize the expression and to make it acceptable to the target language audience. If the translation is in accordance with the expressive habit of the target language with the use of such translation strategy, it will be more fluent and natural.

3.3 Rules of translation in skopos theory

Skopos theory mainly contains the following rules: the skopos rule, the coherence rule, the fidelity rule and the loyalty rule, among which the latter three are subordinate to the first rule, which primary in skopos theory.

1. The coherence rule

Coherence rule refers to the fact that the translation must follow the standard of intra—textual coherence, which means that not only the translation itself is easily read and accepted, but also the readers should be given understandable translation. What’s more, the culture of the target receivers should also be considered for a better understanding of the translation.

1. The fidelity rule

As we are engaged in translation, the rule of fidelity is an important part of translation. No omission is permitted and the meaning you express must follow the original article. What’s more, the fidelity should base on the rule of coherence. Sometimes, the rule of fidelity can abandoned as it is in conflict with the purpose.

1. The loyalty principle

Holding the principle of loyalty, besides the rule of fidelity, translators should concentrate on the receivers and tell them the reason why you translate like this and what you have done in the translation. We should take the original author as the object we are loyal to and respect them. The native writer and the reader should be taken into consideration at the same time.

Chapter Four Analysis of the Translation of swear words

This chapter gives a detailed analysis of the translation of several prototypical instances of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron. More specifically, it deals with the overall strategies and skills of translation, the ways these strategies and skills are realized and the translation of various of swear words.

4.1 Analysis of the translation of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron

Swear words are very common in The Deer and the Cauldron, but they are also the highlights of the novel. The protagonist Wei Xiaobao spent his childhood in a brothel in Yangzhou, where he learned nothing but how to lie, cheat, steal money from clients, and curse people he does not like. Civilization and politeness can hardly be seen in his growing environment accompanied by his mother, who is a prostitute. Wei Xiaobao’s character was formed in such a horrible and complicated environment, which also contributed to his double-dealing behavior in communicating and mediating with court officials, eunuchs, and people in the Kungfu world. When he talks to others with a smile on his face, he may be cursing others fiercely in his heart. This is even true when he is alone with Emperor Kangxi. Indeed, some swear words are so rude that they can evoke very unpleasant feelings in the reader; while others contain too many unique Chinese cultural elements that are difficult for Western readers to understand. The following are typical instances in the novel.

1）蓦地里大堂旁钻出一个十二三岁的男孩，大声骂道: “你敢打我妈! 你这死乌龟、烂王八，你出门便给天打雷劈，你手背手掌上马上便生烂疔疮，烂穿你手，烂穿舌头，脓血吞下肚去，烂断你肚肠。”(金庸2006：64)

A lad of twelve or thirteen came running into the salon, crying: “You dare hit my mum，you rotten turtle! I hope you’re struck by lightning and your hands fall off，I hope your tongue rots, your belly fills with pus, your guts drop out.” (Minford 1997:79)

This excerpt marks Wei Xiaobao’s first appearance in the novel. The Chinese readers hears the voice of the protagonist before he sees the person, who curses so viciously. This gives Chinese readers a psychological expectation. Similarly, when English readers read the corresponding translation, they will be utterly shocked because it is quite different from the way they curse in their daily life. Here, Minford adopted the principle of “function plus loyalty”, shrinking “死乌龟、烂王八” into “rotten turtle”, translating “天打雷劈” into “struck by lightning”, translating “烂穿” into “rot” and “脓血” into “pus”, “肚肠” into the “guts”. He also kept a more original syntactic structure and retained a more intact swearing expression of Wei Xiaobao. It is believed that this translation is far more memorable than the popular English swear words “fuck, damn, shit, bastard, bloody, son of a bitch” which are frequently used.

2) 他想起母亲被人殴辱，气往上冲，隔着厢房门大骂:“贼王八，你奶奶的熊，我操你十八代祖宗的臭盐皮。你私盐贩子家里盐多，奶奶、老娘、老婆死了，都用盐腌了起来，拿到街上当母猪肉卖，一文钱三斤，可没人买这臭咸肉。”(金庸2006：70)

He remembered how his mother had been struck in the face, and the insults to which she had been subjected, and rage surged in his young breast. “Turtle-spawn! Cowards! Salt—that’s all you’re good for! Sod the lot of you, you and all your foul pickled ancestors! Go and salt your grannies’ fannies and sell them as pickled pork—if anyone’ll buy the stinking stuff!” (Minford 1997: 83)

In Chinese , the word “王八” has the same meaning of the word “乌龟”, thus Chinese people are so prejudiced to this word. Chinese people often refer to the cowardly man and the man whose wife is having an affair as “乌龟” and “绿帽王八”. It also spawned such swear words as “王八蛋”, ”王八羔子” and “贼王八”. “Turtle” is American slang for "coward". Viewing from this way, English and Chinese have some common things. The pragmatic use of this word equates to "bastard" or "son of a bitch" in English. Instead of this, the translator uses "Turtle - spawn" here. "Turtle - spawn" this seemingly Chinese English, in fact, some westerners have accepted. Professor Minford uses it here to give western readers a taste of some of Wei Xiaobao's curse words.

Although readers and writers here in different cultural environment, but as a result of both can accept this kind of expression, Minford did not simply adhere to the principle of fidelity under skopos theory. Minford chose the loyalty principle according to the specific situation to, which not only better express the meaning of the original, but also comply with the principles of purpose.

In example 2, Wei Xiaobao cursed the female relatives of the family “奶奶、老娘、老婆死了” and “拿到街上当母猪肉卖”, which is a very vicious and rude word in Chinese culture. In English culture, however, it is common sense to verbally insult the other person (as Fuck you). Therefore, the Minford does not directly translate it, but take a second person as the attack object.

3) 韦小宝肚中暗骂: “他奶奶的，又要磕头! 你辣块妈妈的皇太后干么不向老子磕头?” (金庸2006: 85)

“Tamardy!” muttered Trinket silently to himself. “Damn! Hot mother’s! More head － knocking! If I had my way this old bag of an Empress Dowager would be knocking her head for me! ” (Minford 1997: 98)

4) 韦小宝心道: “辣块妈妈，我单听你的声音，就知你是个大大的奸臣。” (金庸 2006：103)

“Wow!” thought Trinket to himself. “Red-hot momma! You only have to open your mouth and I can tell that you’re the one who’s a wicked traitor.” (Minford 1997: 117)

In the above four cases, “辣块妈妈” were respectively translated into “Hot mother’s”, “red-hot momma” and “hot-piece mother’s” and “Red-hot momma”. “Red-hot momma” is a popular American word. Here, professor Minford chose the principle of "fidelity plus function" for a better expression of the swear words in the original text and was more loyalty to the original text, so he chose some frequently used swear words in the United States to translate the swear words in the original text, as to help readers more vividly understand the meaning of the swear words in the original text.

In the book, Wei Xiaobao uses the rough word “fuck” in many places. However, in different language communicative environments, it has different meanings, such as curse, surprise and intimacy. Professor Minford used more than ten English words to translate: ‘Damnation’, ‘Tuck them’, ‘my arse’, ‘for God’s sake’, ‘fucking’, ‘boy’, ‘Damn it’, ‘Tamardy’, ‘oh mother’s’, ‘good’, ‘oh dear’, etc. Using several English words to translate a Chinese word according to its different pragmatic functions not only enriches the expressiveness of the translated work, but also properly reflects the pragmatic function of the original text. This conforms to the principle of “fidelity plus loyalty” under the perspective of skopos theory.

4.2 Results

Based on skopos theory, this paper reports the translation strategies and skills used in The Deer and the Cauldron to reveal the process of translating swear words of the protagonist Wei Xiaobao.

In The Deer and the Cauldron, Wei Xiaobao used about 345 swear words, and Minford followed the principle of fidelity and loyalty under skopos theory to achieve the translation purpose. He treats the principle of loyalty as one of the translation criteria, and uses different expressions to express the same swear words of Wei Xiaobao, which not only vividly expresses the meaning of swear words, but also makes readers better understand them. That's the principle of loyalty. The principle of fidelity is the basis of professor Minford's translation, which is to be faithful to the original text and express the meaning of the original text in another language on the basis of the original text. When we need to make a choice between the purpose of translation and the rule of fidelity, the latter should be abandoned without doubt.This often occurs because the translator has different understandings of the original text, and the translator is more inclined to express his understanding, thus ignoring the fidelity of the original text.

Considering different people from different countries whose culture are various ,their methods of exchanging opinions are effected. Besides, when the purpose of translation is in conflict with the principle of fidelity, we should choose the latter. Object of rendering outweigh the fidelity policy. Just like the swear word “辣块妈妈” which generated from the dialect of Yangzhou province. When the word "辣块", which means “哪里” is put together with “妈妈”, it becomes a swear word. In China, all swear words are related to the mother, so there is such a swear word. But it can be used as an interjection, an exclamation, and in many other ways. For example, when one sees something that has never been seen before and causes wonder or struck in dangerous situation, he will use this word to express his emotion. However, this kind of cultural source words with Chinese characteristics are hard to express in English, so we can't stick to the literal translation of the original text, that is to say, we should abandon the principle of fidelity. Professor Minford skillfully used a variety of swear words popular in the United States to express the meaning of “辣块妈妈”, which is the application of the principle of loyalty, so as to achieve the purpose of the principle, more loyal to the reader. Minford takes the principle of loyalty as a basic method to handle some cultural differences existing in different receivers. Minford, upholding the principle that the translator has a moral responsibility to the recipient of the translated text, constantly explained to them what he did and why he did it. This is one aspect of the loyalty principle. Minford also abides by another aspect of this principle, that is, the translator should be loyal to the original author, the translator should respect the original author, and coordinate the target language of the translation with the intention of the author.

None of translation contains only one translation method. We tend to choose two or more theories to demonstrate your translation. Sometimes, two methods are combined into one. No difference will exist between semantic translation and communicative translation, only if translators could get the original information and know the features of writing and language as the readers. Information can not be limited by some special circumstances, and its content and form are not separated, so translators ought to learn more ancient, modern and foreign theories of translation, draw on the strengths of various schools of translation, self-experiences makes it clear to us that flexible application of various rendering way distinguish our translation which is trustworhy.

Translators ought to fully analyze the author of the original text, the target receiver, the background of the original text. Then engaging on the translation that can play the same role as the original work, so as to make the translation readable and easy for readers to understand and accept on the premise of correctly conveying information. According to behavioral theory, any behavior has a specific purpose. Translation is also an activity, that is, an action with a purpose. Thus, translation techniques is adopted to the aim of translation, which is crucial in selecting suitable techs. In terms of literary texts, which translation method is adopted, domestication or foreignization? One of the most important part of today’s translation theories is that when translating alike texts, various of translation principles and methods can be used. Why are there multiple versions of the same work translated, except for the needs of social ideology in different times? Is there another purpose? At the beginning, translation is so hard and complex for most of people. And it also be limited by the factors of purpose. From the perspective of translation strategies, Minford took great pains to translate swear words. In the translation, he used a variety of translation strategies, including fidelity, loyalty and domestication, as well as a lot of rhetorical devices, in order to achieve the effect of accurate translation of swear words. Therefore, from the very beginning, the translator, as a text producer, has a macro basis for the selection of translation strategies.

4. 3 Discussion

Translation is a work needs more sense of responsibility. The connectors should give first pirority to authors and readers. And a translation should contain the integrity of the original work. The primary responsibility of the translator is to faithfully convey the ideas in the original text, and should not randomly select or delete be based on personal preference. There were parts of the original book that survived even if Minford found it tedious and repetitive. Therefore, the purpose of his translation is also very clear, that is, to present an original version of works to foreign readers. His aim is based on the faithfulness, on the basis of the faithfulness to achieve elegant, not to transform meaning because of words. Hence, during the process of picking the appropriate translation strategies, we should not omit the importance of our translation goal. When we study some translation strategies, we find the decisive role is the target receiver, which means that we are pursuing the translation purpose. In literary translation, the purpose is especially important. When running into some problems in the translation, skopos theory can be used as guidance for a better solution. As we are translating, choosing domestication or foreignization is a key step, in which we need to identify what translation strategies and skills are used to meet the goal of cultural communication. Only when the text is understood by the recipient can it be meaningful. Of course, the limitations of the functionalist skopos theory also prevent it from becoming a comprehensive principle with universal significance. No text can have only one function, and no translation strategy can be abused. Therefore, it is important to grasp a certain scale and translate a good work with a single mind.

Chapter Five Conclusion

Merits and demerits are coexisted. Here will display the key discovers and the imperfections of the essay. Then, the limitations of the study are presented. In addition, my own perspective of the translation of swear words is presented.

5.1 Summary of Major Findings

The differences existing in language and culture add lots of difficulties to the translation of swear words. Skopos theory provides some guidance for the translation of swear words, under which translators should choose appropriate translation strategies by aims and the contents to best transfer the message of swear words in the native texts.

In John Minford’s translation of “The Deer and the Cauldron”, he translated Wei Xiaobao’s swear words with the main use of skopos theory which argues that all translation activities follow the first principle “purpose”. Skopos theory mainly contains three rules: the rule of coherence; the rule of fidelity; the rule of loyalty. Among these rules, the coherence and the fidelity are the fundamental parts. First need to consider is the principle of loyalty, it is an inevitable part of translation theory. As we are engaged in translation, we may combine all these theories to uphold your translation, so which is more important should be clear.

As for my perspective, besides combining all of these strategies and skills mentioned in the references, Minford adopted the means of using different strategies under different circumstances. What’s more, following the skopos theory, Minford translated swear words according to the diverse contexts by following the rules of coherence, fidelity and loyalty.

5.2 Significance of the Study

Jin Yong’s martial arts novels can be said to be unparalleled in the Chinese fiction circle, and countless people are his fans. His novels not only create a matchless hero for everyone, but also let people experience a different martial arts world. Most importantly, they also convey unique Chinese culture and spirit to the readers. The death of Jin Yong last year brought tears to the eyes of many Chinese novelists and fans. The news also caused a stir. It was the sad news that made me turn my grief into strength to pay tribute to Jin Yong, so I chose his works andsearched through books and Internet to find the English translation of Jin Yong’s novels. However, the result was disappointing. Not many of Jin Yong's novels were translated into English. Among the few translated works, the one that interested me most was professor Minford's translation of “The Deer and the Cauldron”. I have been interested in the novel The Deer and the Cauldron since I was a child, in which the character of Wei Xiaobao is extremely lively and funny. One of the attractive part of The Deer and the Cauldron is the swear words that frequently used by Wei Xiaobao. However, there are very few domestic and foreign articles dedicated to the translation of swear words in The Deer and the Cauldron. it is precisely because of this that I have the interest to supplement this blank.

As the communications between countries are gaining popularity, including the communication of culture, how to vividly and simply pass one’s special information to the other is of great significance. A well-done translation not only give lots of help to the foreign readers for a better understanding, but also well spread our nation’s special and splendid culture to the western world. Hence, mastering enough techniques and skits of interpret is crucial and beneficial to learners.

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