A Comparative Study On Functional Equivalence And Faithfulness Expressiveness And Elegance From The Translation Of Vanity Fair

American translator Eugene A· Nida who translated Bible has proposed functionalequivalence theory by the end of1960th, which has an overwhelming significance in thedevelopment of translation theories and practice. This translation theory roots on modernlinguistics, information theory and social semiotics. The functional equivalence theory is not onlyconfined to the correspondence in vocabulary and grammar between original language and targetlanguage, meanwhile, the correspondence of response between original readers’ and targetlanguage readers’ is paid much attention. Nida proposes that the translation should be accord withoriginal text in abstract meanings, rather than the equal of original form, and he also pays muchattention to the response of target language readers. He thinks that expressing naturally, properly,and appropriately with target language is the central duty in translating, which provides animportant translation theory to all translators.As the further effect of western translation theories to Chinese translation theories, translatorsin China point out different translation theories from those in western countries. Yan Fu, one ofthe famous people in China, proposes the famous translation standard of faithfulness,expressiveness and elegance, which roots on Chinese classical aesthetics and literary criticism,and it plays an important role in the translation field. Although there are both agreements andoppositions after Yan Fu proposing his translation theory, it indeed provides the perfect translationstandard to Chinese translators.We can see from above that both Nida’s functional equivalence and Yan Fu’s faithfulness,expressiveness and elegance all provide the translation standard for translators, and they havedifferences and similarities, which are analyzed by the translation of Vanity Fair written byThackeray. I will analyze on the comparison of translation theory of Nida and Yan Fu from theperspective of culture, rhetoric, words, sentences, chapters and so on, meanwhile, the reasons ofthis comparison are also explained in this thesis.In this thesis, the functional equivalence of Nida and faithfulness, expressiveness andelegance of Yan Fu are all explained in detail, at the same time, I introduce the theoreticalfoundations of Nida’s and Yan Fu’s theory, which provides the possibility for us to understand better these two famous translation theories. On the base of explaining each features of them, Iwill analyze the translators how to deal with all kinds of original information on the effect ofNida’s and Yan Fu’s translation theories in order to find the differences and similarities of themthrough analyzing the translation versions of Vanity Fair. Meanwhile, I will point out some ideasin order to hope all translators can do better in translation work.