2。3 The development of Functional Equivalence

Dr。 Eugene Nida is one of the most famous representatives of Western linguistics in the field of translation theory。 After more than 50 years of translation theory research and translation practice, he has achieved fruitful results in translation theory。 He abandoned the traditional translation terms such as “literal translation” , “free translation” and “faithful translation” and put forward the formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence as the basic directions and guidelines of translation practice。 Nida believes that the main difference between formal equivalence and dynamic is that they are different on the requirements the two target language should achieved。 Formal equivalence focuses on the translation message, in both form and content。 The so-called formal equivalence means that the message in the target language should be consistent as possible with the different elements in the original language。 Dynamic equivalence is based on Nida’s “Equivalence Principle”, which requires that the relationship between the recipient and the message should be fairly consistent with the relationship between the original readers and the message。 The so-called dynamic equivalence refers to the information from the semantics to the body。 When the translator do the dynamic equivalence translation, he should focus on the meaning of the original text instead of sticking to form equivalence to the original text。 The purpose of dynamic equivalence is that the relationship between the readers and the translated message should be essentially the same as the relationship between the original readers and the original message。 Dynamic equivalence focuses on the expression of original readers’ purpose。论文网

Nida changed the term “dynamic equivalence” into “functional equivalence” in his book From One Language to Another 。 He explained the change in his another book Language, Culture and Translating in 1998 that dynamic equivalence has been treated in terms of the “closest natural equivalent” while the term “dynamic” has been misunderstood by some people as it gives an impression that there are contradiction between content and form due to the consistency in the content taking precedence over the consistency in the form。 The term “functional equivalence” aims to highlight the communicative function of translation and eliminate the misunderstanding。 “functional equivalence” requires that the target text and the original text are not only equivalent in the content of the information, but also in the form of the equivalence。 By contrast, the functional equivalence is more convincing than the dynamic equivalence。 

Nida also found that there are no two kinds of translation that are completely equivalent。 From this aspect, equivalence is just only a idea。 It can be pided into different levels of equivalence in terms of approximation of the original。 The lowest level of functional equivalence should refer to “the translation can achieve adequate equivalence so that the target audience or readers can understand the meaning of original readers’ purpose”。 It is the basic requirement of equivalence and it is difficult for readers to accept the translated version below this level。 While the highest level of functional equivalence refers to “the translation should achieve a high degree of equivalence so that the target audience or readers’ the reaction of understanding and appreciating the translated language consistent with the original audience or readers’ reaction of understanding and appreciating the original language”。 However, it is almost impossible to achieve the highest level of equivalence because it requires a high degree of linguistic and cultural correspondence between the source language and the target language。 

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