The Virtuality Of Equivalence In Translation

This thesis makes a systematic research on'equivalence', especially giving a detailed account of Nida's theory. It confirms the historical value of Nida, as it is Nida that makes equivalence a translation principle familiar to both specialists and laymen. Then the author inspects its theoretical basis and further explores Nida's dissertations about equivalence in different periods, clarifies some misconceptions about his theory, and makes the following statements:The theoretical basis of equivalence is Transformational Generative Grammar and Readers'Response Theory. The former emphasizes the homogeneity of languages, revealing mechanical nature; the latter emphasizes the readers'responses to concrete texts, featuring subjective nature, which altogether lead to the historical limitations in the respects of objectivity, descriptiveness, applicability, and interaction between the subjects and objects of translating process.The author takes examples from Cultural Suzhou, a reader to the ancient history and culture of the ancient city of Suzhou, to prove that the theory of equivalence is not so applicable in the practice of translating this book, which has its distinct language and cultural features.This thesis claims that the theory has been too vague in the respects of interpreting the linguistic meaning and reenacting the aesthetic values of the original text, not reflecting the heterogeneity of languages and cultures in particular. And it tries to discuss how to recreate the linguistic and aesthetic values of the source text from the two levels of language and culture, asserting that it is unrealistic to use equivalence as a universal benchmark for translation which spans across historical, geographic and especially cultural dimensions, thus proving that Nida's theory features ideality, subjectivity, partiality and evident domestication, which constitute the virtuality of his theory.Finally, the author unveils the light this thesis shed on the dialectical criticizing attitude, developing directions, evaluation, study approaches and ultimate discovery of the nature of the most complicated activity in human history—translation. He also...