Maguai Songs Translation Based on Skopos Theory in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region

The Maguai Festival, also called the Frog Festival, is a traditional large-scale folk activity centered on frog worship among the Zhuang People in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, with the area Donglan, Bama, Fengshan, Tian'e, and Nandan around Guangxi's Hongshui River basin in particular. The rituals are mainly made up of four parts: looking for the Maguai, parading with Maguai coffin, worshiping the Maguai, and burying the Maguai. As the song contest continues through the whole sacrificial ceremony, so the Maguai Festival is also called the Maguai Songs Contest, which includes sacrificial ballads sung by sorcerers or other hosts to describe how the Maguai benefits the Zhuang People and antiphonal-styled singing to make friends or exhibit their talents. Taking the Maguai Songs among the Zhuang People in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region as an example, the paper probes into Chinese-English translation strategies for song lyrics based on Skopos theory, which is of significance to arouse the motivation for attempts at folk song translation all over China.