In Language, Culture and Translating (Nida, 1993), Nida admitted the shortage of judging translation adequacy by “readers’ response”。 As he argued: “In the first place, it is often very difficult to determine how the original readers comprehended the text, and in the second place, it is frequently impossible to evaluate effectively the responses of those who read a translated text。”(1993:117)

He also explained the reason and put forward relative solutions: “One of the reasons for the latter difficulty is that many people have certain presuppositions about what a translated text should be like; In general it is best to speak of ‘functional equivalence’ in terms of a range of adequacy, since no translation can in fact represent varying degrees of equivalence; This means that ‘equivalence’ cannot be understood in its mathematical meaning of identity, but only in terms of proximity, i。e。 on the basis of degrees of closeness to functional identity。”(1993:117)

With Nida’s perception becoming more impeccable and accurate, his Functional Equivalence Theory becomes more and more precise and convincing。 It is easy to identify its main concepts, which are: reader's response; closest natural equivalent to the source-language message; and Content vs。 Form。 

2。1。2 Applications and related studies of Functional Equivalence Theory in Translation 

Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory enjoys great popularity all over the world。 German professor Wolfram Wilss supports Functional Equivalence and thinks it could be accomplished in translation because effective translation was possible and everything could be expressed in every language。 In the United States, channeled by Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory, in Translating the Word of God (1988), John Beckman and John Callow develop the concept of “idiomatic translation”。 American translation theorist Larson supports Nida by saying that “the overriding principle is that translation is meaning-based rather than form-based” in Meaning-based Translation (1984)。 

In China, Nida’s influence is profound and lasting。 In the 1980s, Nida’s works were introduced into China。 During this period, his translation theory gained more attention in China than any other western translation theories and has been a hot topic in China for almost two decades。 Many Chinese scholars emerged to focus on the study of Nida’s translation theory。 

Based on Functional Equivalence Theory, Jin Di put forward the principle of “equivalent effect” and applied it into the translation of Ulysses, whose success has confirmed that Functional Equivalence is applicable to literary translation between English and Chinese。

Tan Zaixi wrote a book Nida on Translation in 1984。 Written in Chinese, it influenced a lot of people who study translation, and Nida’s theory was popularized among them for a while。 Many scholars started to apply Functional Equivalence Theory to translating different type of works, like advertisement, drama, novel and so on。 The explorations from different perspectives well fertilize our understanding of Nida’s theory and provide insightful penetration for the theory application。文献综述

Another predominant Chinese scholar, Ma Huijuan, made a detailed and thorough study on Nida's theory in her remarkable book, A Study on Nida’s Translation Theory (2003)。 This book studies Nida's theory systematically, provides an objective review on it and illustrates some misunderstandings toward Nida's theory with persuasive evidences。 What’s more, it demonstrates that “Nida’s theory of Functional Equivalence can provide useful guidelines for translators in English Chinese literary translation” (2003:184)。