On The Translation Of Allusions In The Merchant Of Venice From The Perspective Of Equivalence Theory

Allusions, the essence of language and the crystallization of culture, often contain rich meanings. One of the distinctive features of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, one of his greatest plays resides in its exquisite language, especially its extensive use of allusions. It has been translated into Chinese by several translators, such as Zhu Shenghao and Liang Shiqiu.Allusions, as a special text type, have some distinctive features. Now allusion translation still remains a hard nut to crack. Allusions are fixed phrases that go through the test of history and cannot be treated separately. In order to be loyal to the original text, the translation of allusions should not only keep the original taste of the source, but also meet the standards of writing. How to make allusions understandable and achieve equivalent effect in the rendering is a very important question for us to solve. Under the guidance of Nida's Equivalence Theory, and based on the analysis of the strategies adopted by Zhu Shenghao in allusion translation, this paper probes into how Zhu Shenghao achieved equivalent effect in his translated version of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice, and make some suggestions to translators in allusion translation.The thesis is composed of six chapters. Chapter 1 is a general introduction to the issues being covered in the paper. Chapter 2 centers on Nida's Equivalence Theory. Chapter 3 is the introduction of allusion, including the definition, characteristics and its use in literary works. Chapter 4, or the focus of the thesis, probes into the strategies of translating allusions adopted by Zhu Shenghao in the translation of The Merchant of Venice. Chapter 5 points out the possible suggestions to achieve functional equivalence in allusion translation. One the one hand, the translator should take serious consideration of target readers'response; on the other hand the translator should consider the cultural differences. Chapter 6, or the conclusion part, restates the significance of the Equivalence Theory in allusion translation and points out that functional equivalence based on the equivalent effect plays a very crucial role in allusion translation.