摘 要：奈达翻译理论为翻译领域做出了杰出的贡献，特别是他的功能对等理论，是对传统翻译理论的一个突破，在建立新的翻译理论模式方面给我们以启发。笔者拟从功能对等的四个层次来分析其在翻译实践中的应用。
关键词：奈达；功能对等；翻译
1. Brief Introduction of Eugene Nida
Dr. Eugene A. Nida (1914--) is one of the most distinguished contemporary translation theorists in the west. During his past fifty years of study in translation theory and practice, he has achieved great success in this field. His translation theory has exerted a tremendous influence on the translation studies not only in western countries but also in Asian countries, especially in China. He is generally recognized as the most influential one among all the contemporary translation theorists.
He develops the communicative translation theory put forward by Newmark, who is a famous translation theorist of England. The communicative translation theory not only emphasizes language meaning transform, but also functional equivalence. Spreading and becoming popular in China in early 1980s, Nida’s translation theory is the debut for most of Chinese translators to contact the western systematic translation theories and has deeply influenced the translation theory research in China. In spite of the doubts on his theory appearing in late 1980s and early 1990s, it is certain that Nida’s translation theory gives significant inspiration to translation researchers.
With the research fruits of modern linguistics, Nida has carries out a descriptive research on translation and contemplated deeply on the major problems of the practice and research of the translation theory. With an active mind, he frequently renews the translation theory and keeps rectifying and developing his thoughts and ideas about translation theory. His translation theory is mainly on the basis of the developments of contemporary linguistics, communication theory, information theory and semiotics.
2. Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory
2.1 Conception of Functional Equivalence
Functional equivalence theory was first put forward in 1964. This principle emphasizes the functional equivalence of information instead of the direct formal equivalence in translation so as to keep the meaning and style of the source language functionally equivalent to that of the target language as much as possible. The functional feature of the translation depends on the balance of two relationships, that is, the relationship between the target language receptor and the target text should generally be equivalent to the relationship between the source language receptor and the source text, and it is the two relationships that provide the basis for functional equivalence.
2.2 Literal Translation, Free Translation and Functional Equivalence
Nida is the first person to handle the disputable problem between literal translation and free translation. He holds that effect is the most important element in translation. Regardless of the method of literal translation or free translation is followed, as long as the response of both source language reader and target language reader is somewhat equivalent, the best translation can be achieved.
In traditional translation theory, literal translation focusing on form is called faithful, while translation emphasizing meaning is free. Nida insists translator focusing on form, especially in verses, sentences and concepts equivalence, is formal equivalence. It is dangerous in reproducing intention and meaning of original author, even worse, to result in reader’s misunderstanding. In his opinion, the translator following functional equivalence will be more faithful to the original text than following literal translation, for that the former strategy requires more fully and comprehensively understanding of the meaning of original text. Moreover.
2.3 Four Levels of Functional Equivalence.
Translation involves message transmission between two languages and cultures, and there still exists lots of similarity among different language cultures, which is the objective basis. Because of the different location, history, cultural ground and education level, it is hard to be objective. The definition of translation Nida proposed shows that translation is not only related to equivalence of lexical meaning, but also the equivalence of text connotation and style, message translated in translation includes surface lexical message and deep cultural message. Functional equivalence includes four levels: lexical equivalence, sentence equivalence, passage equivalence and style equivalence.
2.3.1 Lexical equivalence
The meaning of a word lies in its usage in language. In translation practice, what confuse us is how to find the corresponding meaning in target language. Take Tension is building up as an example, tension and build up both have different explanations without consideration of context. Thus this sentence can be translated as several different editions: 1. 形势紧张起来；2. 张力在增大； 3.电压在增加. In English—Chinese translation, completely lexical equivalence lies in special terms and terminology, besides which there are five correspondences, word equivalence, synonymy, polysemy, lexical meaning overlap and zero equivalence.
2.3.2 Sentence Equivalence
Sentence equivalence is more complicated than lexical equivalence. In English- Chinese translation, singular and plural form is an important and evident problem. Plural meaning in Chinese is not expressed with any evident plural form, which is different in English. Moreover, for different target language, tender, number and tense should be taken into consideration in translation. Thus, translator should be clear about whether such a sentence grammar exists in the target language or not, and be clear about the frequency of such sentence grammar.
2.3.3 Passage Equivalence
In order to achieve passage equivalence, language is not the unique element we should consider, what we should also take into consideration is how the language represents meaning and performs its function in a specific context. Passage equivalence consists of three parts, passage context, scene context and cultural context. Passage context lies in analysis of language, which aims to judge the meaning of words and semantic units in original text, and is based on analysis of meaning and connotation of the passage. Scene context includes the concrete person and things involved in communication, the channel of communication, the relationship among participants and mental emotions.
3. Conclusion
Nida’s translation theory has been popular in the world for nearly sixty years and it has become an indispensable part of translation studies. Holding a panoramic view of all the important points in Nida’s theory, we can conclude that the essence of his theory is that he insists the translator should pay prior attention to the meaning of the source text and should not be curbed by the expression form of the source text. Moreover, Nida’s translation theory is a genuine breakthrough and its influence and contribution to the translation field cannot be underestimated, and it dose render us a profound enlightenment that the excellent translation comes from practice.
Bibliography:
Jin Di and Eugene A. Nida. On g: Chinese Translation and Publishing House, 1984.
Eugene A. Nida. Language, Culture and ai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press, 1993.
熊德米. 奈达翻译理论评述 . 重庆大学学报, 2001 (4).
林书武. 奈达的翻译理论简介.《国外语言学》，1981(2) .
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