A Study On Chinese-English Translation Of Tourist Material: From The Perspective Of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory

The concept of "equivalence" in translation has not only been a principal problem among Western translation theories for 2000 years, but also a basic one in modern time. Quite a few meaningful explorations have been made on this problem; Nida's functional equivalence has been the most influential one among them. The same as the other principles of "equivalence", Nida's functional equivalence has shifted the emphasis of translation from stressing the form of information (which had been stressed ever since) to the content of information and responses of the readers. That's to say, the principle emphasizes "equivalence" on communicative functions between the source language and the target language, but not the "equivalence" on formal correspondence. The theories "readers' responses" and "content over form" are two core parts of Nida's functional equivalence. Nida proposes that because of linguistic and cultural differences, every single language differs a lot in the forms to transmit information, which are of great complexity, arbitrariness, and variability. Therefore, in order to preserve the content, the form should be adjusted precisely if necessary. The author deems that one must stick to the theory during the translation of tourist material. In order to realize functional equivalence translation, the paper suggests that the language of tourist material translation should be natural, accurate and concise. Influenced by the striking differences existing between Chinese and Western Cultures, translators must pay special attention to the cultural differences and make the translations correspond to the features of Western Cultures. Based on Nida's functional equivalence theory, the author suggests the translation strategies of tourist material by virtue of contrastive study on Chinese and English tourist material from the respects of lexical structure, sentence pattern and style. Several translation techniques are presented with suitable examples to meet the translators' needs of settling the specific problems confronted in tourism English translation as well.This study comprises five chapters.Chapter One illustrates the achievements about the selected subject, including methodologies, assumptions, and carries on a brief illustration on the realistic significance of the study.Chapter Two is contributed to a lexical analysis, in which culture-loaded words and four-character expressions are mainly referred to. Meanwhile, techniques of adjustments such as explanation, addition and analogue are suggested to deal with the inadequate messages of translation.Chapter Three is contributed to a syntactical analysis, in which parataxis, passive voices and subject-standing sentence patterns are explored.Chapter Four is contributed to a stylistic analysis, in which rhetoric devices, allusions and poetic lines are dealt with. Meanwhile, techniques of adjustments such as omission, paraphrase and rewriting are suggested to deal with the overloaded messages of translation.Chapter Five is a conclusion in which the findings and drawbacks of this thesis are summarized with suggestions for the future relevant studies.