Translation Strategy and Translation Purpose in Literary Translation

The history of literary translation is always accompanied by the choice of translating strategies and what the most appropriate criteria of judging a translated work are.In the past,people discussed two methods,free,translation and literal translating.Recently,in the translation field appear two new terms,foreignization and domestication.Theorists can barely convince each other on which method is better,and the debate seems to go on forever.In order to solve these problems we need a new perspective.The functionalist theory provides guidance on translation.The basic principle is that the translation method is determined by the purpose of the target text.To achieve the prospective purposes,the translator has the freedom to choose the method he needs — either domestication or foreignization,or both.