On Translation of Legal Texts at the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory 
Abstract

The development of globalization accelerates the speed and widens the realm of international communication. The legal documents and in which the legal culture is hided are the important content of it. However, it is not easy to reach a satisfactory translation due to the professionalism and other features of legal text, because as an inter discipline, legal translation requests both English and legal knowledge background. Though the legal translation has a short history and is recently taken highly of by the people in both legal and translational field, experts and scholars domestic and overseas has fulfilled numerous insightful theoretical achievements and practical experience.

This thesis, in the light of four aspects of translation strategy, analyzes the application of functional equivalence theory in legal text by considering the features of legal text at the same time. Firstly the status quo of legal translation, the significance and purpose of this study and the reasons why the Marriage Law of People’s Republic of China is selected as the study case are introduced in the first part. Part two presents features of legal text, in addition to literature review on the studies of legal translation and, then limitations of those. The third part is a brief introduction on functional equivalence theory proposed by Nida. In this part, principles and applications on translation are clarified. Based on previous parts, part four examines the application of functional equivalence theory in the English version of Marriage Law of People’s Republic of China in terms of four layers which are lexicon, sentence, text and style, according to the frame of this theory’s translation strategies. This part is a core body which intends to meet the need of international legal exchange and prevalent cross-country marriage. The last part is a conclusion of the thesis: the official translation successfully employs functional equivalence theory and is subject to the principles. Therefore, it is advisable to use functional equivalence as a guide for legal translation in order to improve legal translation quality. Additionally, this thesis summarizes study limitations and prospects for future studies.

Key words: legal text, legal translation, functional equivalence theory, the Marriage Law of the People’s Republic of China