The Development Of Nida's Translation Theory By Jin Di And The Applications To The Literary Practice

Dr. Eugene A. Nida (1914-) is one of the most distinguished contemporary translation theorists and linguists in the west. During his past fifty years of study in translation theory and practice, he has achieved great success in this field. His translation theory has exerted a tremendous influence on the translation studies not only in western countries but also in Asian countries, especially in China. He is generally recognized as the most influential one among all the contemporary translation theorists. Especially, his principles of "dynamic equivalence" and "reader's equivalent responses" have completely changed the situation of the Chinese traditional theoretical translation research mode emphasizing static analysis, making the translation research open to various perspectives and providing us with useful enlightenment in establishing new translation theoretical mode. The expression "dynamic equivalence" is defined "in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language", or the maximal level is stated as "the readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it in essentially the same manner as the original readers did". Up to now, His theory was the first western translation theory introduced into China. And his theory has been introduced most into China and is also the most influential translation theory among all the modern western translation theories introduced. Nida and his theory have been a hot topic in China for almost two decades. When it was first introduced into China, Nida's theory enjoyed a high reputation for its entirely new perspective on translation.His translation theory has exerted a tremendous influence on the translation studies not only in western countries but also in Asian countries, especially in China. Jin Di, as a noted Chinese translation scholar, inherited and developed Nida's theory, and he named his theory as "Equivalent Effect". He stated that, "in terms of the nature of language behavior, the impact of a translation upon receptors and receptors' response could be used as an important feedback to evaluate how the receptors understand and appreciate the translation to some extent, and the translator could test the quality of his translation according to receptors' response and reaction involve a number of subjective and objective personal factors, it is unnecessary for us to explore these factors in our study of translation process, Hence, in our discussion the term "effect" refers to the impact of the translated message upon the receptors(i.e. receptors' feel) instead of the receptors' response". We can see that to some extent Jin Di has developed Nida's theory, and he has also put his theory into literary translation, which really created some literary significance to Nida's theory.A detailed study on Nida's theory and Jin Di's theory has been made in this paper. By the analysis of the translation versions in Ulysses, it is proved that Jin Di's theory of "Equivalent Effect" is based on Nida's theory, and he has also developed Nida's theory. What Jin Di has developed is that he applied Nida's theory into the literary translation, which really makes Nida's theory become a Chinese one.The thesis also points out the limitations and enlightenment of Nida's theory in the end.