Applying Functional Equivalence In Translating Chinese Culture-Specific Items Into English

Translation is a cross-cultural activity of great significance. Globalizationbrings in significant opportunities to China and great challenge to thetranslators. A large quantity of Chinese terms needs to be translated intoEnglish. These terms with distinct Chinese cultural features are called"Chinese culture-specific items". In this thesis, the author introduces EugeneNida's theory of "functional equivalence" in the translation of Chineseculture-specific items into English.This thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter introduces thepurpose of this thesis and the language materials to be used.The second chapter is literature review. The author introduces functionalequivalence, which is the theoretical basis of this thesis. According to Nida,all translating should aim at the closest natural equivalent of the message inthe source language. This theory correlates the source reader's response andtarget reader's response, with emphasis on the target text, which is both targetreader oriented and target culture oriented. Since the Chinese culture-specificitems are loaded with strong cultural characteristics, which always causedifficulties in understanding, a target reader oriented translation is essential. The third chapter gives a full analysis of the factors which shall be takeninto consideration during the process of translating Chinese culture-specificitems into English. First the definition and characteristics of Chineseculture-specific items are given. As the translation of such items is closelyrelated to language and culture, we should make clear the relationshipbetween language, culture and translation. Language and culture rely on eachother. To understand a language, one must know well about its culture andvise versa. Culture has been given a significant role in the process oftranslating. As to Chinese culture-specific items, their translating into Englishis mainly influenced by the following cultural factors: historical factor,religious factor, factor of living environment and factor of social development.The fourth chapter provides detailed translating methods based onfunctional equivalence applied in translating Chinese culture-specific items.The methods include the following four categories: transliteration, literaltranslation, adjustment and paraphrase. The method of adjustment can besubcategorized into 1)additions: filling out elliptical expressions oramplification from implicit to explicit;2)subtractions: that of the repetitionsand of the words which might affect the rhetoric features;3)alterations aretreated under the class of "semantic problems involving exocentricexpressions";and 4) annotations: in-text annotation or out-of-text annotation.Each of the method is provided with one to three examples for discussion.The last chapter is conclusion. In this chapter, the author gives a summaryof this thesis.