A Study On American TV Series Translation From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

In a broad background of cultural exchanges and interaction between China and other nations, as well as the growing trend of extensive economic and cultural globalization in the new era, numerous western movies and TV series have been introduced to China. Of all the video products, American TV series have enjoyed great popularity among the Chinese audience. Under such circumstance, subtitle translation is taking more and more interests and concern. Some well-known translation studios have contributed a lot to subtitle translation and provided important materials for subtitle translation study.Desperate Housewives is an outstanding work among American TV series. It is well known both in America and China for its inspiring plots, vivid characters and humorous language. The translation of its subtitle has also become a hot topic. Researches have been conducted on it from the linguistic and cultural perspectives. The present thesis, taking metaphor as its research subject, makes a research on the translation strategies of metaphor in Desperate Housewives under the guidance of functional equivalence theory, and discusses the limitations due to time and space with subtitle translation.Functional equivalence theory is the core of Eugene Nida’s translation theory. It is one of the theories which had been introduced into China at an early time and has made great impact on domestic translation studies. It takes the equivalence of receptors’ response as the major concern, rejects the equivalence in language forms. It tries to put the receptors in the context of their own culture. What’s more, Nida’s ideal criterion for translation is that the target readers’ response to the translated version is essentially the same as the original readers’ response to the original text. The research results in this thesis have found it well-based.This thesis, taking metaphors in Desperate Housewives as its research subject, discusses the strategies on metaphor translation and the equivalent effects the translated version has achieved. It mainly consists of three parts:an introduction, the main body and the conclusion.The introduction part mainly concerns with the research purpose, significance, and method, as well as a review of previous studies on Desperate Housewives. In the main body part, the author first gives an account of Nida’s functional equivalence theory and introduces some concepts of metaphor in the first hand, and then dwells on translation strategies on metaphor in Desperate Housewives, besides, the equivalent effects they have achieved are elaborated on in detail. In the last part, a conclusion is drawn from the research in the whole thesis, and its limitations are pointed out as well.