奈达翻译理论研究 A Study on Nida马会娟

奈达翻译理论研究

A Study on Nida

’

s Translation Theory

马会娟

著

English Abstract

T

his

book

makes

a

systematic

research

on

Nida’s

translation

theory,

clarify

some

misunderstandings

concerning

his

theory,

disclose

its

true

nature

and

explore

its

validity

and

limitations

in

literary

translations.

Examples

from

Today’s

English

Version and T

oday’s Chinese Version of the Bible, which were translated, following

Nida’s

translation

theory,

demonstrate

that

Nida’s

theory,

contrary

to

some

popular

wrong

assumptions,

is

applicable

to

translation

practice

between

foreign

languages

and

Chinese.

A

comp

arative

study

of

Nida’s

theory

and

Jin

Di’s

theory

is

made

to

reveal the similarities and differences between the two theories, and the reasons for

their

discrepancies

are

also

explored.

Examples

from

Jin’s

Chinese

translation

of

Ulysses

are

examined

again

st

the

principle

of

“equivalent

effect”.

This

book

also

explores the limitations of Nida’s theory in literary translation, pointing out that his

theory

fails

to

address

the

issue

of

transference

of

aesthetic

values

of

literary

work

into another language. A

ttempts have been made to amend Nida’s theory in respect of

transferring aesthetic values of literary work by means of “formal aesthetic markers”

and “non

-

formal aesthetic markers”, with aim of marking it more suitable for literary

translation between Chinese and English.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction 1.1 Reasons for further research on Nida’s translation theory

His works on translation set off the study of modern translation as an academic field

( Snell

—

Hornby, Heylen, Baker)

Before his theory was introduced into China in the

1980s, people mainly focused attention on traditional Chinese theories, especially Yan

Fu’s

three—

character principle of translation: faithfulness, smoothness and elegance.

Since

Nida’s

theory

was

grounded

solidly

on

contemporary

d

evelopments

of

linguistics, communication theory, information theory, semiotics and

anthropology,

Chinese

translation

scholars

took

great

interest

in

his

theory.

Chang

Namfung

summarizes

4

kinds

of

misunderstandings

regarding

Nida’s

theory

in

China:

1)

“Dynamic equivalence” is only an ideal translation ctiterion

2) Nida’s theory is unfit

to guide translation practice between Chinese and

English because it grows out of

translation

experience

among

Indo

—European

language

3)

Nida’s

takes

“reader’s

response

”

as

a

translation

criterion

in

evaluating

translation

4)

Nida

doesn’t

respect the cultural factors in the source language and his

maintenance of complete

naturalization

in

translating

is

a

kind

of

cultural

hegemonism.

The

term

“equivalence”

in

Nida’s

theory

never

means

“identical”,

but

only

“substantially

the

same”.

“dynamic

equivalence”

is

founded

on

information

theory,

and

is

has

on

direct

relationship

with

“reception

aesthetics”

or

“reader

-

response

theory”

at

all.

Nida’s discussion about kernels a

nd deep structures is based on semantic level while

Chomsky

focuses

on

syntactical

level.

Nida’s

“science

of

translation”

is

totally

different from the debates of the debate of whether “translation is a science or an art”

occurring

among

some

Chinese

scho

lars.

When

Nida

talks

about

“science

of

translation”, what he means is that he tends to “deal with the process of translation in

a scientific manner”, drawing on the theories

of linguistics, information and communication, etc.

1.2 A profile of Nida

1.2.3

His

academic

contributions

to

modern

linguistics

and

translation

Eric

M.

North,

the

former

General

Secretary

of

the

American

Bible

Society

of

the

American Bible society, divides Nida’s academic activity into 4 phases on his writings

in chronological order:

1) the phase of descriptive linguistics, 1943

—

1951

2)

the phase of cross

—

cultural communication. 1952

—

1960

3)

the translation phase, 1961

—

1973

4)

the

semantic

phase,

1974

—

Message

and

Mission

was

the

most

significant

book of the second phase. Gentzler suggested that it was in this book that Nida first

outlined

his

translation

theory.

This

book

marked

the

beginning

of

the

third

phase.

In the third phase, in the book, Toward a Science of Translating, Nida first

advanced

the proposition of “dynamic equivalence”, and the three

-stage model of the translation

process

：

“analysis, transfer and restructuring”. It is commonly agreed that

Toward a

Science of Translating best summarizes the various aspects of his translation theory.

For

Nida,

translating

means

translating

meaning.

The

most

representative

book

of

this phase was From One Language to Another. In this book, Nida not only further