An Analysis Of Paul White’s Tending The Roots Of Wisdom From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

Compiled by Hong Yingming, a Taoist in Ming Dynasty, Cai Gen Tan is a set of sayings that discusses cultivation, life, conduction of oneself in society and coming into the secular world. Since the1980s, a heated analysis of Cai Gen Tan has spread all over the country and millions of related comments and researches have sprung up like mushrooms after the rain. The translation of Cai Gen Tan appeared in this early century at home. However, few researches have been done in relation to the translation. Eugene Nida’s theory of functional equivalence is one of the most widely accepted among the many theories that have emerged both in the Eastern and Western world. He put forward "functional equivalence" which significantly pushed the development of translation theories and translation criticism. His theory has shifted the focus to readers’response, which is quite different from traditional translation theories.In this thesis the author will make a brief review of the studies of Cai Gen Tan and the application of functional equivalence theory by reading lots of books and literature data. Throughout the qualitative analysis method, the author will analyze some quotations. By using functional equivalence theory, this thesis makes a study of Tending the Roots Of Wisdom from three aspects:culture, style and rhetoric. A lot of examples are given with detailed analysis in order to find out whether Paul’ translation has achieved similar response in target readers and how does Paul’s work achieve finctional equivalence.It is discovered that Tending the Roots of Wisdom has achieved functional equivalence in a degree on culture, style and rhetoric. In the process of translation, the translator carefully analyzed the cultural factors and endeavored to achieve equivalence on culture through adopting some translation strategies; in the translation of style, the author points out that English and Chinese have different standards for language beauty, and Paul tries to appreciate the stylistic features of the original text and express in natural English to show the beauty to readers; on the translation of figures of speech, Paul White achieves rhetorical equivalence by taking reservations and conversion.