Translation Strategies For Nominalization In English From The Functional Equivalence Theory Perspective

History: The Last Things Before the Last written by the famous ideologist Siegfried Kracaue mainly narrates the author's reflection on some basic issues involved in the course of history.The source text of this report is excerpted from the seventh and eighth chapters of this book.The seventh chapter,General History and Aesthetic Approach,focuses on how to deal with the relationship between history and art.The eighth chapter,The Anteroom,discusses the relationship between history and philosophy with an emphasis on the mediating characteristics of history.In recent years,with the development of social science research in China,there are more and more translation researches on social science text,but few of them are based on theoretical guidance.Accordingly,this report revolves round the translation strategies of nominalization in social science text under the guidance of Functional Equivalence Theory to make some contributions to the translation of social science text.“Nominalization refers to the use of nouns(phrases)to express the information originally expressed by verbs(phrases),such as the use of abstract nouns to express actions,behaviors,changes,states,etc”(Lian,2010: 133).In English,nouns are often used in place of verbs to express the meaning of verbs.This trend is inextricably linked to Westerners' emphasis on rational and abstract thinking.Westerners believe that the use of nouns can express ideas more objectively and avoid the interference of subjective thinking.At the same time,using more nouns makes the sentence more concise and flexible.Sometimes even using one noun can also express more complex connotations.The more formal the text is used,the higher the degree of formalization is(Xiao & Wang,2001(6): 9-10).There is no doubt that social science books are formal text,so nominalization structures are frequently used in them.However,due to the cultural differences between China and the West,how to cope with the nominalization structures in translation has undoubtedly become a difficult problem.Therefore,this report applies the Functional Equivalence Theory proposed by Eugene Nida,a famous American linguist,to explore the translation strategies for nominalization in English,which is intended to produce the most appropriateequivalence between the target text and the source text.The report is divided into five chapters.In the first chapter,the task background is briefly introduced,and the significance of this translation practice is demonstrated.The second chapter gives a retrospect of the whole translation from the preparation before translation,initial translation and post-translation.The relevant studies of nominalization and Functional Equivalence Theory are brought out in the third chapter.The fourth chapter is the core of this report,where the translator unfolds the case study with analysis of the application of Functional Equivalence Theory in the translation of nominalization structures.Finally,the conclusion concerning the translator's findings and limitations of this report is drawn in the fifth chapter,.