1。2 Research Issues and Thesis Structure

Functional Equivalence Theory occupies an important position in translation criticism。 In fact, it is very difficult to find a complete equivalent sentence in English to express the same meaning in Chinese。 Therefore, the translator explains the connotation of the source language directly with the target language and the corresponding vocabulary so that target readers are more likely to accept。 This study mainly focuses on a descriptive and explanatory analysis of the Chinese translated versions of Beloved。 The research is carried out on the basis of functional equivalence theory to find out the various application of this theory in the translation process and evaluate the versions from their language features, thought and culture 。

1。3 Methodology

1。3。1 Subject

Subjects of the study include Wang Youxuan’s Chinese version Jiaonv and Pan Yue and Lei Ge’s Chinese version Chong’er。 Wang Youxuan’s version was the first translation version and readers could experience unique features of the original work。 Pan Yue and Lei Ge’s version was considered as the best translation till now which could provide many translation features to analyze。 It was first published in 2006 and reprinted four times。 论文网

1。3。2 Instruments

This thesis will adopt descriptive-explanatory method which includes documentary research and textual analysis to discuss functional equivalent study on the translation of Beloved。 Documentary research is made to the subjects of the study, combining with the textual analysis to the Chinese version。 These instruments will be used in order to make the study quantitative and qualitative。

1。4 Data Selection

Functional Equivalency is one of Nida’s most contributory and important theory。 It is also a key translation theory in China since 1980s。 Additionally, increasingly researches on Nida’s Functional Equivalency are in the field of science, technology, law and literature。 So more researches on this theory are widely welcomed in translation。 

This thesis will examine the particular problem in the translation of Beloved。 After the 1987 release of this book, it had been widely welcomed around the world。 The contents and forms of the book are rich in black culture。 It is not only one of the most important representative masterpiece of Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison but also the important work of post modernist literature。 The writing skills used in the process of translation are indeed worthy of studying and thinking。 So far, Beloved has already had two Chinese versions。 Though they are both in Chinese, the translation differences still exist。 So based on the latter version, there is no doubt that great attention deserves to be paid to when analyzing the application of functional equivalence in translation。

2 Literature Review

2。1 Previous Studies on Functional Equivalence Theory 文献综述

The meaning of translation is to use the most appropriate, the most natural and the most equivalent language to reflect the source language information from the semantic and stylistic aspects。 Among them, “equivalent” is for the source language information, “nature” is for the target language and “appropriate” is for the combination of the two。 Functional equivalence includes four aspects: vocabulary, syntax, discourse, and style。 Meaning equivalence is the most important and followed by the form。 It is because that the form is very likely to affect the information content of the source language therefore fuzz the reader’s feelings。 “Equivalence” refers to the same feeling of the source language readers and the target language readers, which requires the translator in the translation process to convey the meaning of the source language and respect for the original text as possible。 Under functional equivalence, the translator should firstly face up to the limitation of his knowledge。 He would never introduce a purely personal thoughts into the interpretation of the original。 The right way is to do what original work expresses no matter how the original statement is consistent with translator’s own point of view (Tan, 1999)。 According to Nida’s theory of dynamic equivalence, the translator should take dynamic equivalence as the translation principle to reproduce the source emotion in the target language。 The translation process of functional equivalence is more complicated。 Wang Zhenping and Xia Qin (2012) summarized Nida’s translation steps and pided them into four stages: analysis, transformation, restructuring and inspection。 Specifically, in the translation process, firstly it is based on the original semantic analysis and then it converts the incomprehensible word of source language into a well-understand and simple word of target language。 Next, rearranging the target language。 The rearranged target language can be a entirely new combination of the content or a composition of the resolved content。 At last, it is a must to examine the translation (Sun, 2014)。