Functional Equivalence Theory And Its Application To Advertising Translation

In 1969 the famous American translation theorist Eugene A. Nida put forward functional equivalence theory. Unlike the traditional translation theories that mainly stress the correspondence between the source language and target language, Nida's functional equivalence theory emphasizes reader' response. Nida points out that in order to reach the ideal translation, it's necessary to find the closest natural equivalence. The receptors of the message in the receptor language should respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors did in the source language. Nida's functional equivalence theory greatly enriches translation studies at home and abroad, opening up a new perspective to translation studies.Functional equivalence is one of the most suitable translation theories for advertising translation. By analyzing functional equivalence theory, the writer tries to solve the problems appearing in the process of advertising translation and advocates the combination of theory with practice. With the rapid development of economic globalization and multinational companies of the world as well as China's entry into WTO, there appears a growing need for advertising and its translation. However, as a branch of translation, advertising translation has not been adequately studied. Its own laws, unique purposes, functions and stylistic characteristics decide that advertising translation is quite different from the translation of other writing materials. "Content over form" and "reader' response" are two core parts of Nida's functional equivalence. "Content over form" is an essential means to code with cultural differences in advertising translation. And "reader' response" is an important factor to judge the quality of translation. At the same time, it's necessary to compare the responses of both the original text receptor and the target text receptor to see if their responses are in accordance with each other. Due to the fact that English and Chinese belong to different language families with different cultural traditions, so it's difficult to translate specific languages and cultures. Therefore, in advertising translation, the target audience plays a key part in judging whether it's a successful advertisement or not. In order to make the language of advertisements more appealing and effective, the translator usually adopts various rhetorical devices or adjustment of the text structures in advertising translation.