On The Translation Of Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone In The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

This thesis aims at the feasibility of Nida's "Functional Equivalence" theory as guidance and criterion for literary translation, especially for the translation of children's literature, which is a special type of literary works. In the thesis, the author proves that without considering the part of readers' response, Nida's functional equivalence can be used to some extent as guidance and criterion for all kinds of literary translation. With a comparative analysis of two Chinese versions of Harry Potter and the Philosopher s Stone from 4 aspects: (1) meaning translation, (2) language style translation (3) cross-culture translation, (4) mistranslation, the author finally gives a concrete provement to the feasibility of Nida's "functional equivalence" theory as guidance and criterion for the translation of children's literature.From Nida's putting more emphasis on readers' response, one thing which is very important during the process of translation can be learnt: during the process of translation, a translator should bear his or her major intended readers in mind and try his or her best to make them understand and appreciate the messages delivered in the translation.With children as the major intended readers, children's literature has its own characteristics. Translators of children's literature are required to apply the most natural, laconic but colorful language style and varied expressions to fulfill the children readers' communicative needs and interests. According to the understanding ability and background knowledge of the children readers, it is necessary for the translators to change the form of the original and to use more free translation in children's literature translation than in other types of literary translation.For the purpose of offering some help to the translators of children's literature, the author hopes that ideas presented in the thesis can draw more and more attention of the people in the translation field to the translation of children's literature, especially to Nida's "functional equivalence" theory that can be used as a valid guidance and criterion for it.