An Analysis On The Chinese Versions Of The Happy Prince From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence

The study evaluates the three Chinese versions of The Happy Prince, and it is done at fourlevels of lexical, sentence, stylistics and culture. The theoretical basis of the study is functionalequivalence proposed by Nida.Children have special characteristics in age and psychology that are totally different fromadults, and fairy tales differ obviously in language features from adult literature. It is essential fora successful translation to reproduce these characteristics. A comparison between the versionscan enable us to find the language features of a successful version. This is helpful for children’sliterature translation, and can promote the popularization of children’s literature. The HappyPrince and its Chinese versions chosen in the study are very popular among children readersboth at home and broad for their typical characteristics.To observe these features of the three versions, the author made the source text and theversions machine-readable, and carried out the pos-tagging of the four texts. In this way, thesearch tool Antconc can be used to compare and analyze the materials mentioned above at thefour levels.Below are the major findings.First, the new versions are more characterized by more variations in the use of words andphrases than the old ones. The use of short sentences and inversion as well as the use offoregrounding contribute to the expressiveness of the versions; Domestication strategy is adoptedwhen dealing with cultural difference which has correspondence in Chinese culture. This canhelp Chinese children readers understand the original story better. Foreignization supplementedby notes help Chinese children readers get to know the culture in English speaking countries;Varieties of figures of speeches make the versions more interesting and this helps the realizationof functional equivalence.Second, English and Chinese differ obviously and so do the respective target readers. Andbesides, translators differ in the ability to understand the semantic meanings of words in sourcetext. Consequently, the three versions can only realize functional equivalence in some degree.There is no complete cultural transportation and neither is there absolute functional equivalencein translation. But it is possible to achieve functional equivalence to some extent at the fourlevels discussed in the study.Third, the use of children’s language in the translation of fairy tales can arouse childrenreaders’ interest. And as a result, the version can realize the function to nurture children readers’soul. People’s ability to understand and use language is changing as well as language itself. Theaging old version can no longer satisfy readers’ new needs, and this will result in its replacement by new ones. The new versions are more typically featured by children’s language, and performbetter in the consistence with Chinese children readers’ characteristics in age and psychology.Consequently, new versions can realize functional equivalence in a higher degree.