On Science Fiction Translation With Functional Equivalence

It is necessary to translate classic Chinese literary works into English,to attract readers worldwide.The Three-Body Problem is the most representative work of this kind,the English version of which won Hugo Award,the highest award in science fiction.The translator Liu Yunkun adopted a flexible translation strategy that reflects the cultural heterogeneity and adds literary flavor to the target text.So how would the westerners who are not familiar with Chinese history,culture and ideology accept this work? In this paper,the author takes The Three-Body Problem and its English version as examples to analyze the translation process and effect guided by the concept of functional equivalence.In the first chapter,the subject and structure of this paper are briefly introduced.In the second chapter,the definition and classification of the science fiction,as well as its development in China and abroad are introduced,followed by the introduction to the status quo of research in science fiction translation.In terms of the translation theory,Nida's functional equivalence theory is briefly described.The value of readers' response in translation studies is also introduced.In the third chapter,the author analyzed the translation strategies adopted by the translator and translation criteria from perspectives of special rhetoric devices,Chinese history and culture,scientific contents and cultural conflicts.Later,the author analyzed the translation effect by comparing comments from American readers and Chinese readers,and found their comments are highly consistent.In the last chapter,the author reaches the following conclusion: Translation strategies to be adopted should be selected based on the text type,purpose of translation and target readers in a complementary and flexible manner.The translators need to put themselves in the target language culture to fully understand the interests,decoding capability and ideology of target readers.Translators should endeavor to transmit Chinese culture to the west so as to fulfill the mission of introducing Chinese culture and civilization to the world.