A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF CHINESE AND ENGLISH VERSIONS OF THE DIAMOND SŪTRA FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF SKOPOS THEORY

Abstract

          The Diamond Sūtra is written in Sanskrit originally, which was translated into Chinese afterwards. Kumarajiva’s version is the most popular one. Most of the English versions of the Diamond Sūtra that are widely spread in western countries are all translated according to Kumarajiva’s Chinese version. This thesis aims to make comparative studies on
the Chinese version and English versions to summarize the words translation techniques, explore the factors that affect the translators’ translation.