Abstract

With the up-growing overall national power of China, countless exotic goods throng into the domestic market with the injection of a great amount of non-literary text types as well as more translation of pragmatic versions. Traditional translation theories, among which Eugune Nida's Theory of Functional Equivalence turns out to be the representative, advocate the linguistic equivalence between two texts. However, it is of great difficulty for the translator to transfer the English materials into Chinese literally owing to the negative effect exerted by different linguistic and cultural discrepancy and divergence between the two languages. Another contemporary theory--German Functionalist which came into being in 1970s comes to be different. The core of the theory is that function decides the form. The first principle to follow is the Skopos rule, which is subordinated to by Fidelity rule. Translating strategies shall be adjusted according to the receptors’ need, which indicates that this theory has more rationality and practicability in translation guidance. This thesis discusses the rationality and practicability of the theory from the perspective of English cosmetic instructions’ translation and draws the conclusion by case analysis.

KEYWORDS:Functionalist; Translation; Cosmetic Instructions; Rationality; Practicability

摘　要

随着中国综合国力的上升，越来越多的国外商品涌入国内市场，随之而来的就是更多应用文本的翻译。以耐达的功能对等理论为代表的传统翻译理论提倡语言形式对等，但因受原语与目的语国家语言、文化差异的限制，这种纯文本对等是不可能完全实现的，因而并不能使译文充分有效地发挥预期的功能。而20世纪70年代德国学者提出的功能派理论，其核心内容是：功能决定方法。首要准则是目的法则，而忠实原则从属于目的法则。以翻译受众为主题调整翻译策略，在翻译指导上更加具有合理性与实用性。本文就以化妆品说明书的翻译为视角讨论功能理论的合理性与实用性，通过几个案例分析来得出最终结论。

关键词:功能派；翻译；化妆品说明书；合理性；实用性

1.    Introduction
With the acceleration of the process of economic globalization, the international exchanges in both business and social life become increasingly frequent while the sharp language and cultural distinction existing between different countries will inevitably hinder their communication. Therefore, translation is taking on more importance in this worldwide business interaction and is endowed with an important and irreplaceable function during the interaction of different cultures and information.
Since the reform and opening up to the outside world, the economy of China has been developing rapidly with the result that a great amount of foreign people and things throng into the country, accompanied with more pragmatic versions translators have to be faced with, such as the advertisement and tourist publicity materials. The translation practice nowadays has turned from the traditional literature translation to the field of pragmatic translation, in which what the translators are engaged in is a sort of creative work, like the translation of tourism materials and medicine specification, etc. As a result, an appropriate and triumphant translation is a must for realizing the very aim, which makes a rational and practical translation guiding theory to be badly needed.