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2 Nida’s “Functional Equivalence”
Eugene Nida is both an American translation theorist and linguist, ranking very high in the field of translation as well as linguistics. He is recognized as the “father of modern translation theory”, and he has done many researches in a large number of problems of translation existing in the works and articles. Besides, he is very productive in the fields of both language and translation theory. As both a translation theorist and linguist, Nida also has done a lot of practical research work, which gradually shapes and configures his theories of translation.
2.1 Definition
When it refers to the translation theories by Nida, the most famous and familiar to us are “functional equivalence” and “dynamic equivalence”. Actually, at the early period of Eugene Nida’ researches, he came up with “formal equivalent translation” as his translation theory, that’s to say, formal equivalence bases on source language, and form are stressed much more than content. Later, while by his definition, in dynamic equivalence translation, translators should achieve extremely similar reader’s response in both source and target language. There’s no doubt that in this process, translators will more or less make some adjustments in form. In Nida’s research, he took content prior to form, while gradually he figured out that through the whole translation process, translators always try their best to achieve the perfect combination between form and content, and form and the spirit, however, contradictions are inevitable. Under such circumstances, Nida and many other translation theorists think form should give priority to content. At the same time, he also stresses that although form is in the second place, it doesn’t mean that form is of little importance. Therefore, the expression dynamic equivalence was replaced by functional equivalence. Translation in accordance with functional equivalence should not only make sure the information between source text and target text is equivalent, but also try to pursuit form equivalence as far as possible. He indicates clearly that information should not only include contents and ideas, but also contains the language form. Form itself also conveys meaning, changing the form will result in the changes of the basic meaning. Therefore, he puts forward five prerequisites in the translation process when changing form is considered, that is:1) literal translation will result in misunderstanding in meaning or wrong meaning; 2) the use of loan words will result in semantic zero and it will cause the readers’ possibility to fill the meaning of the loan words himself which might not be true; 3) formal correspondence will result in serious failure of the understanding of the meanings; 4) formal correspondence may result in different meanings which the source text does not have; 5) formal correspondence will result in grammar mistakes or inappropriateness in target text. (Nida & Waard, 1986).
Nida’s concept of functional equivalence provides a completely new criterion for the evaluation of the translation, which shifts from the form to the content of the message for the receptor. So, in accordance with his theory, an effective translation should be the one that can produce in the receptor a response very close to what the original reader has experienced. In other words, when producing a functional equivalent translation, one should be constantly aware of the capacity and motivation of the receptor.
2.2 The applicability of Nida’s “Functional Equivalence” Theory
Although English sports news language is different from Chinese sports news, as it is all known that all kinds of news share some basic characteristics: timeliness, entertaining, informative and professional and also using a large number of technical terms and phrases, etc. Although the languages are different, the style and the form between the two versions of sports news are similar.