1。2 Significance of the Study

This paper mainly deals with the English translation of metaphors in Chinese classical poetry from the perspective of Nida’s functional equivalence theory。 Actually, I searched the CNKI for researches on the similar topics but to find that there are very few articles about the translation of metaphor in classical poetry。 Most of the existing researches on metaphor translation in Chinese classical poetry are discussed from the perspective of cognition or aesthetics (Xia, 2011, p。 132)。 So, this paper expects to study the English translation of Chinese classical poetry from a new point of view rather than continue to study the metaphor from the perspective of cognitive science or from the angle of aesthetic。 If Nida’s theory finally proves to be an effective pattern in translating, it can play a guiding role in later research of translation。

2。 Literature Review

2。1 Previous Studies of Metaphor Translation in Chinese Classical Poetry

Metaphor has been widely used in Chinese classical poetry。 As the most typical rhetorical device in Chinese classical poetry, metaphor plays a rather important role in conveying the deep meaning and emotion contained in images。 So the accuracy of metaphor translation directly influences the overall artistic conception of the poetry (Lakoff, 1980)。 History and background information of the poem, certain racial culture, the link between the ontology and the noumenon, the writer’s writing style are all needed during the process of translating, which makes the translation of metaphor in Chinese classical poetry rather difficult (Xue, 2011, p。 46)。 文献综述

In history, many great writers such as Dante, Hugo, put forward the untranslatability of poetry。 One crucial reason is that it is impossible to achieve the complete equivalence in rhetoric。 Then how to convey the metaphor accurately and emotionally? Peter Newmark (1988, p。 39) used to pide the metaphor into five categories and proposed seven translation method since 1988: 1。 Use the image same as that in the source language; 2。 replace the image with one which is similar to that in the source language in case of cultural conflicts; 3。 replace the metaphor with simile and retain the image; 4。 replace the metaphor with simile and add the meaning of the image; 5。 express its meaning directly; 6。 delete; 7。 integrate the same meanings of the same image。 In 1996, Li Qingsheng (1996, p。 132) also put forward five translation methods in Practical Tutorial of English-Chinese Translation: 1。literal translation in the explanatory form; 2。literal translation according to the correspondence of meaning; 3。using metaphor; 4。dealing with the metaphor in English version by the dual sentence in Chinese version; 5。replace the source image with the target image。 

2。2 Eugene A。 Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory

Euguen A。 Nida’s functional equivalence translation theory emphasizes not only on translating the words on the sense of vocabulary rigidly, but also taking equivalence of semantics, work style and literary form into consideration。 Nida explicitly pointed out in the book Toward A Science of Translating(1964) when it comes to the dynamic equivalence that dynamic translation does not pay so much attention to matching the target language message with the source language message , but in terms of the dynamic relationship between receptor and message, it should be adequately the same as that between the origin ones (Chen, 2005)。