Functional Equivalence Theory And Its Application In English Idiom Translation

Under the guidance of Nida's functional equivalence theory, the present thesis conducts a research on the Chinese translation of English idioms in the English learners' dictionary. The thesis lists out some English idioms and analyzes their Chinese translations one by one, and by the analysis points out some places that the Chinese readers find difficult to understand and then gives out the Chinese translations of those idioms for reference. It aims to achieve a functional equivalence in translation. After reading the translated work, the target language readers should react the same as the source language readers do to the biggest degree.Idioms are of great importance to English learners,and the study and understanding of idioms rely greatly on the English learners' dictionary, so whether idioms are dealt with appropriately not only relates to the description of idioms themselves but also influences the quality of the whole dictionaries. Although contemporary researchers are deepening their studies on idioms, practical researches still rarely touches the fields of detailed study of idiom dictionaries and there are less researches which give out Chinese translation items for reference.In the thesis the author will analyze some translations of the English idioms from the New Age English-Chinese Dictionary and points out some suggestions to the translation of English idioms in the dictionary and gives out reference translations so that the Chinese readers can have a better understanding of the original idiom's meaning and can have the same reaction as the English readers do and thus keep the main spirit of those English idioms. And by this we believe will benefit the English learners of idioms.