Translation Of Business English In Functional Equivalence View

Dr. Nida's theory of functional equivalence has been highly valued and has influenced the practice of translation in general. The primary purpose of this paper is an attempt to explore the theoretical basis of Nida's functional equivalence theory and provide practical help to translators in translating business English. As different from other equivalence theory, Nida's equivalence theory distinguished itself by shifting it's focus of attention to the relationship between text and reader, and by regarding reader's response as the criterion of translation.It's known to all that with the globalization of economy, international business is now very common and business English is being more and more important. A great many people are doing research work on business English and business English translation. But as far as the author of this paper can see, our translation work still leaves much to be desired. The study of these underlying difficulties becomes quite necessary and important.This paper combines the language features of business English with the study of business English translation. We have done the two by applying equivalence theory, especially Nida's functional equivalence. By functional equivalence, Nida refers to the equivalence "first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style". Nida also holds that the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to the TLT should be the same as the degree to which the receptors in the source language respond to the SLT. We think the two points above are in effect the same because when the TLT and the SLT are functionally equivalent in meaning and style, the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to the TLT is surely the same or almost the same as the degree to which the receptors in the source language respond to the SLTIn order to prove that this theory can be best applied to business English translation, we summarized the language features of business English from two perspectives, namely, the perspective of function and the perspective of style. In view of function, we think business English mainly has two functions, the informative function and the interpersonal function. In view of style, we think business English language has the following features:" clearness, conciseness, correctness, consistency, courtesy, formality and completeness".On the basis of the above discussion, we have translated plenty of examples of business English, achieving functional equivalence in both meaning and style at the word level, the sentence level and the discourse level. This result indicates that Nida's theory of functional equivalence can be best applied in business English translation and functional equivalence can be achieved. On the other hand, equivalence theory still needs to be improved.