Biblical Idiom Translation: From A Perspective Of Pragmatic Equivalence

Idioms are crystal of national wisdom, which gather unique cultural features and various language styles. Biblical idiom, among different kinds of English idioms, is universally viewed as one of the most representative cultural phenomenon in western society. Since Biblical idiom is culturally bound, it is not easy for Chinese translators, who are immersed in eastern cultural tradition, to achieve translation equivalence in Biblical idiom translation.Translation builds up a bridge between source language and target language, while Biblical idiom translation, more importantly, links the gap of culture between source text and target text readers rather than just language translation. But since Biblical idioms are embedded in specific culture, the process of building up the bridge is difficult and cragged rather than smooth and flat. In the case that translator has a bit inadvertent, it can be in total disorder or lead to failure in translation practice.In the practice of Biblical idiom translation, pragmatic equivalence is a crucial principle, but complete equivalence, as for the translator, is not easy to reach, sometimes even out of reach. The cultural connotation of Biblical idiom is not always identifiable, mostly implied or hidden. Therefore, the translator's most important capability is not just get the meaning of propositional content but transfer illocutionary force and implicature accurately to the target language, when propositional content and implied content could not be considered simultaneously, propositional content shall give way for illocutionary force and implicature in order to reach pragmatic equivalence. Therefore, whether the translator has understood illocutionary force and implicature, and conveyed the implied meaning to the target language readers plays an essential role in judging a translator's competence for the translation work.This thesis studies the pragmatic equivalence in Biblical idiom translation, and attempts to find practical strategies to convey the illocutionary force or pragmatic implicature of Biblical idiom properly to the target language.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter one is a brief introduction to the whole thesis, which states the reasons and objectives of the study.Chapter two is a study of Biblical idioms. The first part is about idiom, including the definition and origins of idioms. The second part demonstrates Biblical idiom and Biblical culture. Next part shows the categories of Biblical idioms, and the final part refers to the features of Biblical idioms.Chapter three deals with pragmatic equivalence in Biblical idiom translation. This chapter first briefly introduces the development of pragmatics. Then it comes to the essential term in this thesis, pragmatic equivalence. The thesis clearly defines the term and introduces pragmatic implicature and illocutionary force principle in pragmatic translation, and some Biblical idiom translation examples are utilized here to demonstrate how to achieve pragmatic equivalence under the above mentioned two principles. The following part mentions the pragmatic failure in Biblical idiom translation. Subsequently, factors affecting pragmatic equivalence in Biblical idiom translation have been listed, including culture, translator's comprehensive quality, context and thinking mode.Chapter four comes to the strategies used for pragmatic equivalence in Biblical idiom translation after the study of Biblical idiom and pragmatic equivalence. The thesis firstly states the general and guiding principle in Biblical idiom translation, namely, cultural facsimile, and then the practical strategies, including literal translation, contextual amplification, annotation, replacement and paraphrasing, with some vivid examples, are introduced to explain how to get to the pragmatic equivalence in Biblical idiom translation.Chapter five concludes the whole thesis, and points out that pragmatics provide a new dimension and scientific method of analysis for Biblical idiom translation. The author hopes that more translators could focus on the study of Biblical idiom translation from perspective of pragmatic equivalence.