Report On Translation Of Autobiography From The Perspective Of Nida’s Equivalence Theory

As one of the representative styles of biography,autobiography gives priority to narrate life experiences of the character.Studies on autobiography translations are of great significance for the spread of both personal thought and national culture.Nevertheless,most of the domestic researches on autobiography translations target to E-C autobiography translations of foreign celebrities;studies on C-E autobiography translations of Chinese celebrities can be numbered.The present thesis mainly focuses on Chinese to English autobiography translation,with Stories of the Sahara,a non-fiction novel,as the source text of the translating project.The book was published in 1976 by San Mao,who is a famous Taiwanese female writer,as her first autobiographical non-fiction novel.Stories of the Sahara altogether comprises a series of eighteen stories.These stories are filled with exuberant and fine emotions and record the life condition when she spent time with her husband,He Xi,in Sahara.The translator selects three stories with similar emotional tones to conduct translation practices,which respectively are Restaurant in the Desert,Getting Married and Desert Bathing.These three stories mainly express the love of life,the self exile and the optimistic personality of San Mao,conveying deep and contagious emotions to readers.The study is carried out under the guidance of Nida’s equivalence theory.Nida proposed that equivalence effects in translation practice are categorized into formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence(namely functional equivalence).Hence,the translator firstly gives a try on formal equivalence,attempting to ensure that the translated version could be in the closest line with the form and content of the source text.Translation methods such as literal translation,annotation and transliteration are applied in this part;next,the translator conducts an exploration on functional equivalence.In this part,the translator adopts translation methods such as liberal translation,negation,cultural replacement and change of voices,etc.,aiming to convey the main message and take reader’s response into account.The translator attempts to reproduce a similar effect of the translation as the source text does,allowing readers of the target language to have a similar response as the source language readers do.The present study can be a significant reference for C-E autobiography translation practice;however,limitations also exist inevitably.For instance: functional equivalence theory overemphasizes reader’s response,therefore,sometimes the transmission of the original form or culture might be ignored,which would lead to a certain degree of cultural losses.In addition,the translator’s understanding of the source text and the handling of the translation will also be influenced by personal factors.