A Study of Two Chinese Versions of the Picture of Dorian Gray From the Perspective of Functional Equivalence文献综述

 2022-09-08 12:06:46

Literary Review of the Study of Two Chinese Translation Versions of The Picture of Dorian Gray from The Perspective of Functional Equivalence

  1. Studies on the Functional Equivalence

(1) Brief Introduction to the functional equivalence theory

Among the many theories of translation that have emerged both in the Eastern and Western world, Eugene Nidarsquo;s theory of functional equivalence has exerted a tremendous influence on translation studies throughout the world and he is regarded as the most influential one among all contemporary translation theorists (Newmark 1993:133). In this theory Nida has developed a new and special methodology of translation studies by absorbing useful information from linguistics, theory of literature and art as well as the science of communication. According to Nida, the closest natural equivalence to a source-language message contains three essential terms: (1) equivalent, which points toward the source-language message; (2) natural, which points toward the source-receptor language; (3) closest, which binds the two orientations together on the basis of the highest degree of approximation (Nida, 2004:166). That means so as to get a translation to be a closest natural equivalent to a source language message, first the language of the translation must be natural and easy to understand; second, the message delivered by the translation must be the closest possible approximation to the message of the original. In the process of the translation, under the guidance of functional equivalence theory, a translator should put more stress on the meaning and spirit of the original but not be prisoned in the structure and form of the original.

(2) Significance of the theory in the West

In western, there had been two tendencies in translation before Nidarsquo;s theory come into being, especially in early nineteenth century: view of un-translatability and method of literalism. Bassentt refereed to these the common views at that time in his Translation Studies as “ One viewed translation as creative art, and the other took it as mechanical process.” (1980:65). The notion of regarding translation as the creative writing was widely accepted at that time, and led to the concept of un-translatability, especially in the realm of literary translation. The problem of un-translatability forced the literary translator to resort to two methods to escape the situation. One was to use literal translation, which concentrated on the immediate language of the message; the other was to use an artificial language...the special feeling of the original might be conveyed through strangeness (Bassentt, 1980:66). All these notions on translation caused unnatural renderings in the 19th century. Another tendency is literalism, which put emphasis on technical accuracy in translating. This translation guidance made the sense quite lacking and had a very negative effect on translation. Nida pointed out that “ they[these translators] have never been popular with the Christian community of English-speaking people, for they simply do not communicate effectively, owing to their 16th century forms and the literal, awkward syntax.” (2005:20). Thus Nida proposes his famous functional equivalence theory.

Nida regards translating as communicating. With the proposal of functional equivalence, the focus has been changed from the text to the readers and from meaning transference to the receptorrsquo;s response to the translation. No matter how close the renderings are to the original, if the readers cannot get the right feeling from it, then any effort in translation will become useless. The theory studies translation from a new perspective and it is a milestone in the history of conflict between literal and free translation. “It bypasses and supersedes the nineteenth-century controversy about whether a translation should incline towards the source or the target language, and the consequent faithful versus beautiful, literal versus free, free versus content dispute” (Newmark, 1981:10).

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