A Corpus-based Study Of English Translation Methods Of Reduplicated Words In The Republic Of Wine From The Functional Equivalence Perspective

Since Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012,Mo Yan and Mo Yan’s works have received unprecedented attentions.Many scholars have translated and studied the Mo Yan’s works.Mo Yan’s works have been translated into different languages and spread abroad.The author combines the objective data provided by the corpus with the functional equivalence theory of Nida,and analyzes the Howard Gowblatt’s translation methods of reduplicated words in The Republic of Wine.According to corpus statistics,reduplicated words appear 1505 times in The Republic of Wine,of which,AA-type reduplicated words appear 439 times,accounting for 29.17%;ABB-type reduplicated words appear 279 times,accounting for 18.54%;AABB-type reduplicated words appear 195 times,accounting for 12.96%;ABAB-type reduplicated words appear 26 times,accounting for 1.72%;ABAC-type reduplicated words appear30 times,accounting for 2%.Because these five kinds of reduplicated words are mainly types in Chinese,so the author study the English translation methods of these five kinds of reduplicated words.After research,Howard Gowblatt’ translation methods about reduplicated words include: free translation;deduction;parallel structure;alliteration and assonance;“-ing” structure;onomatopoeia;plural form;English RWs for Chinese RWs,simile.The author uses functional equivalence theory to analyze these 9 translation methods and finds that: parallel structure;alliteration and assonance;onomatopoeia;and English RWs for Chinese RWs achieve the relatively high level of functional equivalence.Because these four methods can preserve the original form,and convey the real meaning so that the source language readers and the target language readers can produce the same understanding of the text content and have the same feeling about the beauty of RWs.Then,free translation;“-ing” structure;simile achieve the lower level of functional equivalence.These methods abandon the formal equivalence and pursue the correctly expression of meaning.In this way,target readers can understand the text correctly,but can not feel the beauty of RWs.Finally,the deduction achieves the lowest level of functional equivalence.Among the examples of deduction,the author finds that Howard Goldblatt omitted the translation of the repetitive or unimportant elements in some examples,which doesn’t affect the correct understandings of target readers.But in some examples,Howard Goldblatt omitted the translation of the key information,which leads to the source readers and the target readers produce different understandings.Therefore,through the study of this paper,the author believes that parallel structure;alliteration and assonance;onomatopoeia;and English RWs for Chinese RWs are the best ways to translate the Chinese RWs,which can reflect the beauty of RWs and convey the correct contents of the original text.If we can’t take into account both the form and the content at the same time,we should abandon the form and pursue meaning by using“-ing” structure,simile,free translation and deduction.Finally,we must be careful when using deduction and we can not omit the translation of important information.