作者：李桂芝
　　【Abstract】In the two complete translations by Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang and David Hawks and John Minford， charater names are translated with different strategies， which are respectively transliteration and translating meaning. A closer look at the background information of the two versions leads to the conclusion that the differences in charater name translation strategies are justified from the perspective of the skopos theory.
　　【Key words】 character names; translation strategies; the skopos theory
　　【作者簡介】李桂芝，石家庄铁道大学外语系，副教授，硕士，研究方向：翻译理论与实践。
　　【基金项目】河北省高等教育教学改革研究与实践项目，课题号：2018GJJG231，“中国工程技术话语体系构建背景下英语专业翻译课程改革研究”。
　　Ⅰ.Introduction
　　Hongloumeng by Cao Xueqin has been long held as one of the great masterpieces of Chinese literature. Its complicated characters， relationships and plot pose a great challenge to translators. The two well known complete translations of Hongloumeng are A Dream of Red Mansions by Yang Hsien-Yi and Gladys Yang and The Story of the Stone by David Hawks and John Minford. Both are well accepted translation of the Chinese original， yet after a close reading of the two versions one may find that there are a lot of differences between them concerning the translation of the book title， the character names， the idioms and puns， to name just a few. For example， 王熙凤对贾母说：……举眼看看，谁不是儿女？难道将来只有宝兄弟顶了你老人家上五台山不成？（292，chap 22）The two versions are：
　　1.Look， aren’t all of us your children？ Is Pao-yu the only one who’ll carry you as an immortal on his head to Mount Wutai？ （Footnote： Mount Wutai was a holy Buddhist mountain. （312， Y&D）
　　2.You forget， Grannie， when you go to heaven young Bao-yu wont’t be the only one who’ll walk ahead of the hearse. （433， Hawks）.
　　It can be seen that Y&D’s version is more source culture oriented while Hawks’ version more target culture oriented. The skopos theory may serve as a perspective in discussing such prominent differences.
　　Ⅱ.Literature review
　　In his book A Skopos Theory： Some arguments for and against， Vermeer briefly repeats the main axioms， definitions and assumptions of skopos theory in the form of theses. Vermeer starts from the assumption that all acting is goal-oriented， and since translating is a kind of acting， translation is goal-oriented. Thus， he comes to the conclusion， which is the basic rule of the skopos theory： The skopos of （translational） acting determines the strategy for reaching the intended goal （Vermeer 1996： 12-15）. In the linguistically oriented approach， the translator has to be faithful to the original text and the evaluation of the target text will be based on its faithfulness to the source text. While here， the skopos theory allows for different strategies and versions of the same source text based on different skopoi. A source text is usually composed originally for a situation in the source culture. The target text， the translatum， is oriented towards the target culture， and the reason why the target text is needed may and （in most cases so） be different from the intention of the author/producer of the source text， so if the translator just sticks to the source text，， whether its content or style or ‘spirit’， he may not produce a target text that meets the need of the present. The theory “asks only that translators strive for optimal solutions within actual existing conditions” （Gentzler 2001： 71）. What translators take into consideration when faced with some translation problems is what strategy may best fulfill the skopos， and of course they should evaluate the knowledge and expectations of the assumed readers.