A Study Of English Translation Of Words With Chinese Characteristics From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Under the background of peace and development,China has been deepening its communication with other countries in political,economic and cultural aspect.As a socialist country in the world,China adheres to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics all the time.In order to help people at home and abroad better know about the thoughts and content of socialism with Chinese characteristics,the Foreign Languages Press has published the Chinese and English versions of Xi Jinping——The Governance of China I in October of 2014 and the Chinese and English versions of Xi Jinping——The Governance of China II in November of 2017.There are 178 pieces of talks,speeches,interviews,instructions,correspondence and so on in total in the two volumes of Xi Jinping——The Governance of China and the content of them contains many words with Chinese characteristics.Hence,this paper is aimed at analyzing and studying the English translation of the words with Chinese characteristics based on the Chinese and English versions of the two volumes of Xi Jinping——The Governance of China.American well-known translation theorist,Eugene A.Nida has put forward his famous functional equivalence theory and this theory pays great attention to achieving the “equivalence” between the source language and the target language.Besides,it emphasizes that this kind of equivalence not only should be “formal equivalence” and the connotative meaning or core meaning of the source language should be embodied to the fullest in the target text.To a great extent,functional equivalence theory is significant to guide the translation of political texts.With the guidance of Nida’s functional equivalence theory,this research is aimed at analyzing the factors which should be taken into consideration in the translation of the words related to politics,words related to economy,words related to culture and words related to society and the translation methods which are employed in the translation of these words for reaching functional equivalence between the source text and target text mainly by employing the qualitative research method through specific examples which will be analyzed and discussed in detail in the paper based on the Chinese and English versions of the two volumes of Xi Jinping——The Governance of China.At last,the factors which should be taken into consideration and the translation methods which are employed in the translation of these words with Chinese characteristics will be concluded in this research by adopting inductive method.The major finding are as follows:(1).The factors which should be taken into consideration in the translation of the words with Chinese characteristics from the perspective of Nida’s functional equivalence are concluded as follows: social backgrounds and social culture;the usage of language expression;political sensitivity;the context of the language;cognition and thought pattern.(2).In terms of realizing the functional equivalence of words with Chinese characteristics between the source text and target text,the main translation methods which are employed are as follows:literal translation method;omission translation method;free translation method;literal translation plus annotation method;free translation plus annotation method;literal and free translation method;literal translation method with acronym;omission plus amplification translation method;literal translation and amplification method.In the end,this research hopes that it can make a contribution to the translation study of Chinese political texts and offer a beneficial support to the translation practice of Chinese political texts.