C-E Interpretation Of Culture-specific Items From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

With the continuous and rapid development of China, diplomatic interpreting has played an important role in foreign exchanges, and official press conferences of Chinese government offer us a great chance to learn some of the culture-specific items. Since these items load distinctive culture elements and are influenced by the features of diplomatic interpreting, the translation of them are rather difficult. Nida’s functional equivalence theory focuses on the response of target readers, emphasizing that the response of target readers should be substantially the same as that of original readers. This theory can lead us to fully consider the influence of cultural elements to target audience. This thesis discusses interpreting strategies of Chinese culture-specific items in the diplomatic field from the perspective of functional equivalence theory. It reviews the definition and development of this theory at first, and states the general principles that Nida has provided and the influence this theory has exerted to the research of translation theory in China. The author also introduces the definitions and features of diplomatic interpreting and culture-specific items, and puts the interpretation of these items into the framework of functional equivalence theory. Through the analysis of cases from the simultaneous interpretation of press conferences of the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic of China in 2014, this thesis focuses on the discussion of the three major interpreting strategies of Chinese culture-specific items in diplomatic field under the guidance of functional equivalence theory, which includes literal translation, adjustments and paraphrase, illustrating the applicability, feasibility and necessity of this theory in guiding the interpretation of culture-specific items.