| With the rapid development of Chinese commodity economy, the progress of science and technology, the popularity of mass media, as well as the acceleration of globalization, advertisement is becoming more and more an indispensable and inextricable part of our modern men's daily life. China's successes in becoming a member of WTO and the globalization all together have affected advertising field. The intensification of international commercial exchanges and the fierce competition make a growing need for advertisement and thus for advertisement translation. However, the substantial discrepancies between the Chinese and English languages as well as their cultural distinctness make advertisement translation a highly flexible and rather difficult job.As a sub-branch of translation study, a kind of intercultural communication and a new field of study, advertisement translation gradually attracts the translator's attention and appears as a field of study of great worth due to its own laws. By now, much research and practical work related to this topic have been done. But all these work are far from meeting the needs and developing status of current advertisement. Especially the theoretical study on this new field of translation is also far from satisfaction. Different scholars hold different views on the guiding theory of advertisement translation.Advertisement is a kind of practical writing with a definite commercial purpose. Thus, in the process of advertisement translation, translation theories must be closely combined with the special purpose of advertisement. Among the numerous translation theories, Nida's functional equivalence theory opens up a new perspective for the study of advertisement translation. Functional equivalence, put forward by Eugene A. Nida, is defined as "in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language."(Nida 1969:24) This theory accord with the special purpose of advertisement translation, which requires the translated text have similar persuasive function as the source text. In addition, Nida's functional equivalence theory is mainly based on the translation practice of Bible, of which the overall function is to persuade its readers to follow the guidance of God. While, the ultimate purpose and foremost function of advertisement is persuade its readers to buy the advertised products or services. The overall function of both Bible and advertisement is to persuade its target readers into certain behavior. In this sense, Nida's functional equivalence theory should be viewed as one of the right guiding theories for advertisement translation.This thesis aims at introducing Nida's functional equivalence theory and illustrating the application of functional equivalence theory in advertisement translation between Chinese and English by employing authentic advertisement translation examples. And the main focus is the manipulation of functional equivalence to practical advertisement translation between Chinese and English with the aim to achieve equivalence in translation process at both linguistic and cultural level. Many authentic examples are employed to illustrate how to achieve equivalent functions at linguistic and cultural level by employing properly adaptation strategy under the guidance of functional equivalence. Then, based on the discussion of the guidance of Nida's functional equivalence theory to advertisement translation, the author tentatively suggests some guiding principles for advertisement translation between Chinese and English under the guidance of this theory.Based on the discussion, Nida's functional equivalence theory should be viewed as one of the right guiding theories for advertisement translation. When translating advertisement under the guidance of Nida's functional equivalence theory, translator can employ properly adaptation strategy and follow the guiding principles to achieve perfect translation.
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