A Report On The C-E Translation Of The Sunflower Fields Afar(Excerpts) From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

This report is based on the translation practice of the first four chapters of Li Juan’s collection of essays The Sunflower Fields Afar.Translating this text is of practical significance because it can satisfy people’s curiosity about the ecological geography and customs of Northern Xinjiang.Besides,her unique language style and the universal topic discussed in this book,namely,man and nature,can ensure acceptance of general readers.Functional equivalence is the core of Nida’s translation theory.It emphasizes that the priority in translation is meaning and then the form.Moreover,the response of target readers to translated text should be identical with that of original readers to source text.He also puts forward that equivalence exists in four aspects:lexical equivalence,syntactic equivalence,textual equivalence and stylistic equivalence.Translators should regard the equivalence in the four aspects as the main principle and represent the culture connotations of the source text.Translating the text under the guidance of functional equivalence theory is in line with the features of the text as well as the translation goal.The translator has classified the difficulties encountered in the process of translation into four categories and adopted solutions accordingly:free translation and idiom usage for lexical difficulties to improve language performance;word order adjustment for syntactic difficulties to make clearer the logical structure of sense groups;English cohesive devices for textual difficulties to improve reading fluency;and adaptation for stylistic difficulties to reproduce the style of the source text and to attempt to evoke the most natural response of the readers.