| Bian Cheng is the notable Chinese writer Shen Congwen’s masterpiece, whichis a typical Chinese country-flavor literature. With its vivid description of countryflavor and unique writing techniques, numerous readers have paid great attention to itsince its publication in1934. Though scholars at home and abroad have carried outmuch research on Bian Cheng, few in-depth studies have been conducted on itstranslation, still fewer from the perspective of functional equivalence. Therefore, thisthesis attempts to make a systematic study of the two English versions of Bian Chengby applying functional equivalence to fill the blank in this aspect.Nida’s functional equivalence emphasizes equivalence and pays more attentionto readers’ response. So translators should reproduce the source language message insuch a way that the target language receptors can understand and appreciate the text asthe source language readers did. Moreover, his minimal equivalence restates thecriterion for a qualified translation, and maximal equivalence defines the idealtranslation for translators.In light of Nida’s functional equivalence, this thesis explores the two Englishversions of Bian Cheng, aiming to testify the applicability of functional equivalencein the evaluation and guiding of Chinese country-flavor literary translation. There aretwo versions selected for this study. One is Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang’s version,and the other is Kinkley’s version newly published in2009.The thesis consists of five parts. Chapter one introduces research background,objectives and qusetions. Chapter two reviews equivalence and the previous studieson Bian Cheng. Chapter three focuses on Nida’s functional equivalence, exploresdifferent levels of funcitonal equivalence and principles for producing functionalequivalence. Chapter four makes a comparative study of the two English versions inthe aspect of meaning, culture and style. Chapter five comes to the conculsion that thetwo English versions achieve functional equivalence in most cases, though some ofthem still need to be improved. It further testifies that Nida’s functional equivalence isapplicable in Chinese country-flavor literary translaiton practice and evaluation. |
