A Study On The English Version Of Life And Death Are Wearing Me Out From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

In the year of2012, the first Chinese native laureate of the Nobel Prize has come into being. He is the writer Mo Yan, and then more and more people, home or abroad, concern for him and his works. Just like the award term saying his works are "with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history and contemporary." And "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" is just about the masterpiece with these characteristics. It is a perfect work of literature combining profound meaning and particular style. The honor of the Nobel Prize should attribute to the excellent originals and wonderful translations, especially, English translations which play the most crucial role in leading to success. Therefore, it is typical to take Howard Goldblatt’s English translation of "Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out" as research object, and then the author will analyze in details how Howard Godblatt reproduces equivalence of translation both in meaning and style of the original.Functional Equivalence Theory was put forward by notable American linguist and translation theorist Nida. In the1980s, the theory was introduced to China, after that, it has had a profound influence on Chinese translation, but after the1990s, many experts and scholars began to criticize it and tent to negate it totally. For this, the study on the theory and its guidance in literary translation will have far-reaching significances in setting up the comprehensive understandings and rational utilization of Functional Equivalence Theory.With the perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory, the author conducts a study on English translation of Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out and explores translation strategies which achieve equivalence respectively in meaning and style of the original. Through the study, the author finds that Howard Goldblatt flexibly adopts various strategies to reach equivalence of the original; Howard Goldblatt particularly lays stress on equivalence of message and preservation of exoticness. The author considers that Functional Equivalence Theory provides literary translation with a powerful theoretical basis, which can make up for the deficiencies in Chinese-English translation of literature.