On Functional Equivalence Of Fictional Dialogue Translation In The Courtesan’s Jewel Box From The Perspective Of Characterization

The paper is intended, by analyzing some dialogue samples selected from the Englishversion of the Chinese classic The Courtesan’s Jewel Box from the perspective of thefunctional equivalence theory, in three aspects of implying character’s mind, embodyingcharacter’s background, revealing character’s personality, to explore how the characterizationis reproduced in fictional dialogue translation.The highly personalized fictional dialogue makes characters more vivid and real to life.It reveals important information of character, for instance, personality, thinking and feelings,social status, education, quality and dispositions, profession, identity, life experience, attitudeand the interpersonal relations in certain situations as well, which helps to present the imageof the character. When translating the fictional dialogue, the translator should reproduce theimage of the character so that target readers feel the same image of the character as theoriginal readers did. In the paper, characterization in fictional dialogue may be represented inthe following sections: implying character’s mind, embodying character’s background, andrevealing character’s personality. The Courtesan’s Jewel Box, Feng Menglong’ s mostrepresentative one and the most successful story in Stories to Caution the World, with forcefulimpression and far-reaching significance, is the most remarkable short vernacular story inChina and one of the most prominent short stories in the history of ancient literature of China.It has vivid characterization in dialogues, correspondently, in the translation of fictionaldialogue, much attention should be taken to reproduce the character’s image. Functionalequivalence, put forward by Nida, focuses on the response of the receptor, which is defined interms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond toit in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language. It may be theapproach to fictional dialogue translation so that target readers feel the same image of thecharacter as the source readers did.Judging by analyses, it appears that the version effectively reproduces the images of thecharacters so that the target readers feel the same image as the original readers did, whichaccords with the principle of functional equivalence emphasizing the response of the receptorand verifies the feasibility and maneuverability of functional equivalence approach to fictionaldialogue translation. It may serve as the theoretical basis to guide and criticize the fictionaldialogue translation.