On The English Translation And Explanation Of The Vocabulary Of The Textbooks Of Teaching Chinese As A Foreign Language From The Perspective Of Equivalence Theory

The vocabulary teaching has always been the key point of Teaching of Chinese as a Second Language (TCSL). Meanwhile, the English translation and explanation of vocabulary affects a lot on Chinese study, as it helps the English learners understand and master the meanings of new words. However, deficiencies of some translation result in errors in learners’communication, which brings negative effects to Chinese learners.Theoretically based on the Functional Equivalence theory of Eugene A. Nida, the paper compares and analyzes all types of English translation and explanations in TCSL textbooks, pays much attention on the translating errors and expression errors caused by them, and put forward some advice for English translation and explanations in TCSL textbooks.The paper is mainly divided into the following four parts. Firstly, it introduces the purpose of the writing, and comes up with the principle of translation and explanations in TCSL textbooks. Secondly, it illustrates the Equivalence theory of translation and its influences on vocabulary translation. According to Nida, there are three modes in the process of translating:analysis, conversion and restructuring, which concerns the equivalence between the original text and translated text in syntax, semantic and pragmatics. In the third part, the paper compares Chinese Course, New practical Chinese Reader and New Concept Chinese, analyzes the syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic translation mistakes in the textbooks, finds out the learners’ using errors from HSK corpus, and gives the relevant corrections. In the end the paper puts forward the strategies of vocabulary translation in TCSL textbooks: using morphemes to translate words, using other words to determine meanings, adding descriptions and illustrations to explain the word, and translating and explaining by various means.