A Comparative Study Of Translations Of Mark Twain's Short Story The $30,000 Bequest

Mark Twain,who is one of the most popular American writer in China,satirizes the human weakness manipulated by money in a humorous style and warns the readers to take example of it.The two protagonists are based on opportunism and consumerism which once appeared in American history.The study is based on Nida's functional equivalence theory and the main corpus comes from Mark Twain's short story The $ 30,000 Bequest and its Chinese versions translated by Mr.Zhang Yousong and Mr.Ye Dongxin.It will be conducted by comparing the different Chinese versions in lexicons,sentences,chapters and styles to explore how the functional equivalence theory will be used in the translation of novels,and what strategies the translators adopt to ensure that it will be understandable to the target readers as much as the source text to the original readers.Both versions are excellent on the whole and have achieved equivalence in different degree.Zhang Yousong's version covers approachable,proper and oral expressions while Ye Dongxin's version emphasizes on background knowledge and formal words.Due to the difference between Chinese and English languages,it can be hard for the Chinese version to achieve equivalence on each level,but the equivalence should be limited to the acceptance of the target readers.The significance of this study is to enhance the investigators' understanding of functional equivalence theory and demonstrate its feasibility in fictional translation through the comparative translation study of The $ 30,000 Bequest.This thesis also makes a conclusion about the advantages and disadvantages of the two Chinese versions,so as to do some help with the translation of Mark Twain's works.