A Study Of Guo Moruo's Translation Thoughts And The Translation Of The Science Of Life From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

Guo Moruo is an “encyclopedic” scholar.He is not only an outstanding litterateur,poet,dramatist,historian,and social activist,but also a brilliant translator.Guo Moruo's translation activities are synchronized with his creation,and even his thoughts and creation are deeply influenced by his translation.He began his translation career in the 1920 s and was engaged in it throughout his life.In his long translating career of over sixty years,he has made great achievements,producing numerous translation works(over 30 works with about six million words).Besides quantity,his translation works are rich in genres,which involve literary works(poetry,fiction,drama),works of art history,science history works,and political works.Besides,he has also made some achievements in establishing his own translation theories.After a long period of translation practice,Guo Moruo develops his unique and influential translation thoughts,among which his “style reproduction”,“charming translation”,and “creative translation” and so on still have practical significance for translators of today.This achievement is rare among contemporary translators.However,his contribution to translation practice and theoretical studies is somewhat dwarfed by his brilliant literary achievements.The study of Guo Moruo's translation is still a relatively “young” field.This is inconsistent with the assertion and appellation of an excellent modern translator.Domestic studies of Guo Moruo's translation tend to focus on the general introduction and the analysis of individual literary translation work,while his scientific literary translation work The Science of Life with a high value in his late years has seldom been mentioned;besides,there are few comparative studies on Guo's translation thoughts and western prevailing translation theories.Comparing with this,Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory(FE theory for short)prevails in China and abroad.Nida argues that,“Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message,first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”(Nida,1969:13).The author finds that there are similarities between the theory/thoughts on translation proposed by Nida and by Guo Moruo.Based on the above situations,it is undoubtedly of great significance to study Guo Moruo's translation thoughts,his scientific translation work and make a comparative study with western theories.In consideration of this,at first,the author explores Guo Moruo's translation thoughts,and conducts a comparative study with the prevailing western translation theory— Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory.In this way,we can find how the two theories agree with each other(that is,their similarities).Then,with Guo's science literary work The Science of Life as the object of the study,the author tries to explore whether Guo's translation work can review the concepts of Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory from meaning and style well.Thus,it can prove theoretically and practically that there is indeed agreement between the two theories and the progressiveness of Chinese traditional translation theory.In short,this study contributes to deepen the understanding of Guo's translation theories and practice and recognize the progressive of Chinese traditional translation theories.The author hopes to draw the attention of scholars to the traditional translation theories.With the combination of inheriting research of Chinese traditional translation theories and the referential study of foreign translation theories,thus the translation study in China can get a better development.