Abstract

Swear words are the words which are crude or vulgar and generally offensive. Although these words do not appeal to the refined taste, they are still organic part of human language. It is an inevitable social language phenomenon. Furthermore, it is a useful way for people to reveal their dissatisfaction. Swear words exist not only in people’s daily life but also in some literary works. However, affected by different cultural values, swear words differ in thousands of ways in different languages. So in order to express the connotation in literary works to a large extent, it is necessary and urgent to study swear words translation.

With the rapid development of Chinese literature, more and more excellent literature writers come to the fore. MoYan, who won the 2012 Nobel Prize in Literature, is one of the representatives among these writers. This thesis attempts to conduct a tentative study on the translation of swear words in Mo Yan’s novel The Republic of Wine based on the English version by Howard Goldblatt.

This thesis aims to study the translation of the swear words in The Republic of Wine under the framework of functionalist approaches to translation. In addition, it focuses on the analysis of the different translation methods of specific swear words in The Republic of Wine. Finally, the study centers on the possibilities of applying the functionalist theory to guide swear words translation practice in literary works.

Key words: swear words; The Republic of Wine; functional approaches；translation methods

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1. Introduction-1

2. Literature Review-3

2.1 Brief Introduction to MoYan and The Republic of Wine-3

2.2 Brief Introduction to Howard Goldblatt and English Version The Republic of Wine-4

2.3 Brief Review of Functionalism-6

2.4 Swear Words in The Republic of Wine-8

2.5 Previous Studies on Swear Words and Their Translation-8

3 Methodology-10

3.1 Data Sources-10

3.2 Research Methods-10

4. Analysis of Translation of Swear Words in The Republic of Wine-10

4.1 Reduction-10

4.2 Substitution-11

4.3 Pragmatic Equivalence-12

4.4 Literal Translation-13

4.5 Free Translation-14

5. Discussion-16

6. Conclusion-17

6.1 Majoring Findings-17

6.2 Limitations and Suggestions for Future Studies-17

Works Cited-19