Language Differences, Functional Equivalence And Translation Strategies

The thesis approaches translation studies from the point of view of language differences and functional equivalence. As English and Chinese belong to two different language families, there are many differences between them, phonetically, morphologically and syntactically. What's more, the differences in habits, culture and religious beliefs of the two peoples can all find reflections in respective language. All the differences deserve careful consideration for translation researchers.In actual translation, many theories are applied in dealing with the differences between the languages, to achieve maximum equivalence. China has a long history. The recorded translating activity dates back to the Zhou Dynasty. Ever since then, there are countless translated works in various periods, especially those in writing. Many experiences have been accumulated from their works. One can see them in the prefaces of many of the translated works. These experiences are invaluable translation theories and strategies. The theories approach language differences and equivalence from different aspects: some from the view of pronunciation, form and meaning, some from single word, whole sentence and even whole chapter. As for the equivalence of the text, they put out the theory of " catching the soul" of the original text. All the experiences are the cultural treasures of Chinese people, but they are not systematized and are still to be found renovated by the successor translators in future.In the western world, the equivalence theory is the leading theory in the 1960s and 1970s. The various sub-disciplines of linguistics provide propelling forces for the development of equivalence theory. Nida's theory of equivalence is systematic and popular during the time. In the earlier period, Nida believes that the equivalence can be divided into formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence. By formal equivalence, the target language and the source language are similar not only in form but also in meaning, though sometimes, there is some foreign taste in the target language. By dynamic equivalence, the source language and the target language are equivalent in meaning but not in form because of the cultural factors. The translated text will have the same effects to the target language readers as that of the source language text to the source language readers. So the dynamic equivalence is often used to deal with the differences between languages. In the later period, Nida replaces dynamic equivalence with functional equivalence. Koller believes equivalence may be denotative, connotative, text-normative or pragmatic.According to the equivalence theory, many translation strategies can be applied.In this thesis, Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is used as the object of study. The differences between the languages are approached from 3 aspects of spelling, grammar and sentence length. As is well-known to us, Stowe employs many techniques in creating different characters in the novel. The characters are different in sex, religious belief and literate level, so the language is different from different users even within one language. The blacks are of low literate level: their accent is not standard and the grammatical mistakes can be seen frequently in their conversation. The blacks of different literate levels use different language. The differences among the users deserve discussion. Chinese and English are also different in sentence length, which are also discussed in the thesis.The thesis consists of 5 chapters. Chapter 1 is the introduction telling of the background, the purpose, the methodology of the thesis as well as the research made by the predecessors on language differences. Chapter 2 approaches language differences from the perspective of differences in word forms and the translation strategies concerned. Chapter 3 approaches language differences and the translation strategies from the perspective of grammatical differences. Chapter 4 approaches from the perspective of sentence length. Chapter 5 is the conclusion about the fruit of the thesis.