The Application Of Functional Equivalence In Literary Translation

The core concept of Nida’s theory is “functional equivalence”.Translation is to reproduce the information of the source language from semantics to style in the most appropriate,natural and equivalent language.The so-called “Functional Equivalence” means that translation does not require the rigid correspondence on the surface of the text,but achieves the equivalence between the two languages.Functional Equivalence includes four aspects: 1.Lexical equivalence,2.Syntactic equivalence,3.Textual equivalence,4.Stylistic equivalence.Meaning is the most important,form is the second.It means that the receiver of the target language and the receiver of the source language can get roughly the same response,which is “the closest and natural equivalence to the source language information”.The practical material of this translation report is selected from Irish writer Donal Ryan’s literary work From a Low and Quiet Sea.This work uses a multi-person narrative method.A new moving novel of three men,each searching for something they have lost.Three men,searching for some version of home,their lives moving inexorably towards a reckoning that will draw them all together.This novel takes war as the background,and covers a wide range of topics including family,love and so on.The text of this translation practice is mainly selected from the second part of the novel.The theoretical basis of this translation practice report is Nida’s the Functional Equivalence Theory.The report is divided into five parts.The first chapter is a brief introduction to the author of this translation,Donal Ryan and his works,as well as the translation task and the text.The second chapter is the elaboration of the Equivalent Effect Theory and the research at home and abroad.The third chapter describes the translator’s pre-translation preparation work,translation process,and post-translation review and correction.The fourth chapter is the case analysis of corpus.The last chapter is the summary of this translation practice,stating the difficulties encountered by the translator in translation and the corresponding solutions.In short,based on Functional Equivalence Theory,this report analyzes the application of Functional Equivalence Theory in the translation of literary From a Low and Quiet Sea in order to maximize the functional equivalence between the translation and the original text.