An Analysis Of Translation Strategies For Cultural-loaded Words In The English And French Versions Of Baptism From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

This thesis aims at analyzing the translation strategies of five types (ecological, material, social, religious and linguistic) of cultural-loaded words adopted by English and French translators of Baptism by Yang Jiang from the perspective of Eugene A. Nida’s theory of functional equivalence and examining whether they can arouse the similar reading experience in the readers of translated text with those of the original,.Through the bilingual comparison, the thesis analyzes how translators can address the cultural differences and accurately convey the message and whether the theory of functional equivalence is comprehensive in concluding the translation strategies.The conclusion of this thesis is that the English and French versions adopt different translation approaches for the culture-loaded words. The English version prefers the formal approach, sometimes resulting in unintelligible sentences. But the French version risks deviation from the original message as its free translation is sometimes excessive. But in general, the French version excels at realizing the natural and easy form of expression through compensation, ellipsis and supplementing strategy. In addition, both versions have deployed the rewriting strategy to capture the essential message of the original, thus fulfilling functional equivalence.The thesis is divided into three parts. The first part presents the translation theories applied in the thesis, including culture-loaded words and the functional equivalence theory of Eugene A. Nida; the second part introduces the original, the English and French translations of the Baptism; the third part focuses on case studies by analyzing the translation strategies of the ecological, material, social, religious and linguistic culture-loaded words in English and French versions and examine whether they can achieve the functional equivalence.