On Functional Equivalence In C-E Translation Of Expressions Of Food Culture In A Bite Of China

A Bite of China is a Chinese TV documentary produced by China Central Television(CCTV). It has two seasons with 15 episodes in total. It is considered as the highest rated TV documentary since 1990. Taking gourmet as the main line and “to let the world know China” as the purpose, it mainly introduces food and food culture all over China, shows relationships among people, food and society, and spreads with corresponding Eastern values of life. As a more convenient way to show and broadcast Chinese culture, TV documentary has become one of pioneers of transmitting China's soft power overseas. However, English translation of Chinese TV documentary subtitle has not attracted enough attention of the academic community, as well as English translation of expressions of food culture in the context of TV documentary. How to deliver cultural connotation of these expressions of food culture and to achieve the best effect of translation and cultural transmission is the subject of this thesis. This paper, therefore, taking A Bite of China as research material and Functional Equivalence as theoretical guidance, considering the characteristics of TV documentary, it analyzes Chinese-English(C-E) translation of expressions of food culture in the subtitles and discusses about translation strategies and translation methods through examples.There are five parts in the paper. In introduction, it talks about studies at home and abroad on subtitle translation of Chinese TV documentary and English translation of expressions of food culture, and pointed out significance of the study. The main body is composed of three chapters. The first chapter is mainly about the guidance of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory to C-E translation of expressions of food culture. In the second chapter, it analyzes characteristics of expressions of food culture in A Bite of China and discusses its linguistic and cultural features. The cultural connotations involved in expressions of food culture are usually the difficulties and focuses of translation. In the third chapter, it discusses about realization of functional equivalence of C-E translation of expressions of food culture through examples. Different measures of functional equivalence, i.e. semantic equivalence, formal equivalence and cultural equivalence etc., are mainly discussed with examples in this part. It could be found that the cultural connotation could be delivered completely and effectively with realization of different level of functional equivalence, by using proper translation methods, such as literal translation, free translation, transliteration, explanation, etc.In Conclusion, the importance of functional equivalence during C-E translation of expressions of food culture is emphasized. It is pointed out that although absolute translation equivalence is impossible, from the perspective of functional equivalence, the cultural connotation involved in the expressions of food culture could be delivered effectively by using properly various translation methods, thereby transmission of food culture is realized.