A Comparative Study of Two Chinese Versions of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane from the Theory of Nida’s Functional Equivalence_英语论文

摘要

《爱德华的奇幻之旅》是一本由美国作家凯特·迪卡米洛所写的儿童小说。目前被熟知的中译本是王昕若翻译的版本，而刘清彦翻译的版本则较少人知晓。两篇译本在多处采取了不同的翻译方法，所得的翻译效果各有千秋。论文旨在在奈达的功能对等理论的指导下，从三个层面——词汇对等、句法对等及篇章对等入手，对《爱德华的奇幻之旅》的两个中译本进行浅析和对比，并探讨功能对等理论在该小说翻译中的指导作用。通过分析后本文得出结论：两个译本各有所长，但都不能完全达到功能对等的要求。同时灵活地使用翻译策略和清晰地认识全文能够帮助实现功能对等。

关键词：功能对等  三个层面  对比

Abstract

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane is a children’s novel written by American writer Kate Dicamillo. The Chinese translation of the book by Wang Xinruo is wide-spread, while another version translated by Liu Qingyan is less popular. These two versions adopted different methods within the process of translation, bring different effects. This thesis aims to analyze and compare these two versions from three levels—lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence and textual equivalence under the guidance of Nida’s functional equivalence theory and to explore the guiding role of this theory in translating the novel. After analysis, a conclusion is drawn that both two translated versions cannot achieve functional equivalence completely although they have many merits. Furthermore, adopting translating strategies flexibly and having a clear understanding of the text are helpful to the realization of functional equivalence.

Key words: functional equivalence  three levels  comparison

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1   Research Background 1

1.2   Research Objectives 1

1.3   Research Methods 2

1.4   Significance of Research 2

1.5   Structure of the Thesis 3

Chapter Two  Literature Review 4

2.1   Introduction 4

2.2   Research on Translation from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory 4

2.3   Comparative Studies Based on Functional Equivalence Theory 5

2.4   Conclusion 6

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 7

3.1   Introduction 7

3.2   A Brief Introduction to Eugene A. Nida 7

3.3   Functional Equivalence Theory 8

3.4   Three Levels of Functional Equivalence 8

Chapter Four  A Comparative Study of Two Chinese Versions of The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane Based on Functional Equivalence 10

4.1   Introduction 10

4.2   Lexical Equivalence 10

4.3   Syntactic Equivalence 12

4.4   Textual Equivalence 16

4.5   Conclusion 19

Chapter Five  Conclusion 21

Bibliography

Acknowledgements