Chinese Translation Of English Songs: A Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

With the development of the economical and cultural communications between countries,a large number of excellent English songs have been widely spread in China.However,the theoretical works concerning song translation are still quite few.This thesis attempts to make a further study on the Chinese translation of English songs from the perspective of "Functional Equivalence Theory"."Functional Equivalence Theory" by Nida combines translation with language function.Nida points out,because of different languages and cultures,it is impossible to reach an overall and strict equivalence between source and target texts,but only a functional equivalence.As Huang Zhending(黄振定1998:143) put it:"Even if an overall and strict equivalence can be reached,a translator is by no means overcritical to the formal correspondence of words and sentence structures,but seeks for a rough equivalence of contents and style." Although expressing habits between languages are different,they have the same expressive power and similar language functions such as expressive,cognitive,informative, imperative,and aesthetic.If the translation can gain the basic consistence on the functions above,then "functional equivalence" is realized. "Functional Equivalence" in translation refers to the receptors' response toward the target language should be substantially the same as that of the receptors toward the source language.It includes understanding and appreciating the informative function,expressive function,aesthetic function and other functions between two languages.It is applicable to apply it into song translation.Songs,as a special type of literature,they have their own characteristics.The musical peculiarity is the nature of songs.The thoughts,emotions and aesthetic effect are important means to convey messages and strike receptors.Therefore,song translation is different from pure literary works' translation.It is a piece of work of art creation.In song translation,a translator should reproduce the aesthetic effect of the original besides correctly convey the messages. Word-for-word translation or mechanically correspondence by no means reaches the goal.Only by trying his best to comprehend the cream of the original work,can a translator weigh every word in his translation so as to reproduce the aesthetic effect and artistic charm of the original in target song.The target singers and audience can be struck as if they sang or appreciated the original song directly.The purpose of the translation is to make the translated lyrics get the closest effect of understanding,singing and appreciation of the original song.Valuable devotions of this thesis are twofold.Firstly,the research is conducted from a theoretical perspective;the author bases the research on the principle that "practice should be under the guidance of the theory" to explore the rules of song translation,and puts forward her own ideas; secondly,in the thesis,all the examples quoted are collected by the author in person from hundreds of wide spread English songs and analysed one by one;some of them are translated by the author herself and are compared with other translated versions.The thesis sets off its exposition mainly from the following aspects. Firstly,it demonstrates the features of English songs from the perspective of the language and structure,literature,music,and makes a literature review on related studies concerning song translation;secondly,the thesis introduces the Functional Equivalence theory and elaborates its applicability to the Chinese translation of English songs;thirdly,the thesis applies the theory into the practice of song translation with specific examples to clarify that,through realizing the functional equivalence on sounds,forms and meanings during the process of rendering English songs into Chinese,the translated version can gain the closest effect of understanding,singing and appreciation of the original.