1、1The Application of the Functional Equivalence in the Translation of Chinese Tourist Guide1 IntroductionTourism has become a prosperous industry all over the world. Since the early 1980s, with the development of the reform and opening-up policy, also thanks to the rich tourism resources high mountai
2、ns, great rivers and mysterious culture, China has attracted a large number of foreign tourists. The growth of tourism requires not only the rich tourism resources but also an appropriate language to publicize it. Thus, the translation of Chinese tourist guide is especially important.The translation
3、 of Chinese tourist guide serves as a bridge between China and the rest of the world. Appropriate translation can arouse the tourists interest, so it will be helpful for publicizing China. However, in the process of translation, owing to the cultural differences between China and the Western countri
4、es, there must be some difficulties in understanding the translation. Accordingly, great importance has been attached to the translation of Chinese tourist guide. Many translation theories have been put into practice. Among these theories, Nidas functional equivalence is regarded as an effective way
5、 to overcome barriers in the mutual-understanding.Eugene A. Nida is a distinguished American translation theorist. His translation theory has tremendous influence on the Western as well as Chinese 2translation studies. His functional equivalence, which is developed from dynamic equivalence, was intr
6、oduced into China in the 1980s.Nida gave a clear definition of “dynamic equivalence” in the book The Theory and Practice of Translation in 1969. In this book, dynamic equivalence is defined as “in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor language respond to it in sub
7、stantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language” (Toward a Science of Translating 24). In this definition, dynamic equivalence is defined with “receptors response” as its nature.In 1986, in his From One Language to Another, he changed the term to “functional equivalence”. But ther
8、e is not much difference between the two concepts. He adopts the term “functional equivalence” to stress the concept of function and to avoid misunderstandings of the term “dynamic”, which is mistaken by some persons for something in the sense of impact (Language, Culture and Translating 124). Funct
9、ional equivalence is defined as “The readers of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the point that they can conceive of how original readers of the text must have understood and appreciated it” (From One Language to Another 118). In the definition, the readers reception and response
10、 is reflected. The thesis is composed of four parts. Part one is the introduction. Part two is literature review, in which previous studies on the translation of Chinese tourist guide is introduced. Part three presents some translation techniques from the view of readers reception and response. The
11、last part is the conclusion.32 Literature ReviewMuch research in the translation of Chinese tourist guide has been conducted with different approaches, such as cultranslation approach, contrastive text analysis approach and functionalist approach.The researchers approaching the translation of Chines
12、e tourist guide from the perspective of cultranslation mainly include Jia Shunhou and Zhang Ning. Jia Shunhou, in his article “On the Cultural Adjustment of the Translation of the Chinese Tourist Materials”(90-92) argues that in translation, translators should focus their attention on transferring t
13、he cultural message, and the translated versions should reflect Chinese culture so as to arouse the potential curiosity of the foreign tourists.The transformation of cultural factors is also mentioned by Zhang Ning, in the article “Cultural Factors in the Translation of the Tourist Materials”(3-5).
14、He believes that attention should be paid to the cultural message in tourist materials and its differences between cultures from the following six aspects: historic anecdotes, religion, landscape gardening, national characteristics, cooking culture and mode of thinking. He also believes that the tra
15、nslation of such materials is to transfer messages in the source text to the target text, so the features of tourist materials should be taken into consideration, with the cultural message transformation as the key point. Besides, some appropriate techniques, such as amplification, analogy, omission
16、 as well as adaptation, are also offered.The cultranslation approach regards the translation of Chinese tourist guide 4as a process of transferring culture. It aims at clearing off obstacles that may lead to inefficiency in cross-cultural communication.Many scholars have carried out their contrastiv
17、e studies between Chinese and English tourist guide, including Gao Jinling and Ji Aimei. The differences between China and the West in philosophy, aesthetics and way of thinking have great influence on the language structure and style of writing.Aesthetic differences between Chinese and Westerners m
18、anifested in tourist guide is highlighted in Gao Jinlings article “The Translation of Descriptive Touring Materials in Light of Sino-Western Aesthetic Modes” (100-103). He analyzes aesthetic differences between Chinese and Westerners, which mainly focuses on the following aspects: representation vs.
19、 expression; abstract concepts vs. concrete concepts; poetic pictures vs. picturesque poetry; rich in images vs. exact in depiction; time-oriented description vs. space oriented description. Based on the analysis, he puts forward his point of view about translation of Chinese tourist guide, which is
20、 to reduce subjective descriptions to objective ones. In “A Study of the English Version of Qilu Tourism Culture from the Perspective of Cultranslation and Contractive Text Analysis”, Ji Aimei focuses her research on the contrastive discourse analysis between the English version of Qilu tourism cult
21、ure and the English tourism publications so as to see the different features of the two kinds of tourism English. She finds that the two kinds of tourism English are different in impersonality, formality, diction and 5the way to introduce historical culture involved in tourism.The contrastive text a
22、nalysis approach, through comparing the language features and style of writing between English and Chinese tourist guide, they all agree that English tourist guide mainly focus on presenting information on the geographical surroundings of tourist attractions and cultural heritage. While Chinese vers
23、ions pay more attention to the social status of tourism resources and also give prominence to the scenery and humanistic features of scenic spots.The research on the translation of Chinese tourist guide from the functionalist perspective is mainly based on the skopos theory.On the basis of the three
24、 rules within the framework of skopos theory, namely, the skopos rule, the coherence rule and the fidelity rule, Chen Gang (30-35) proposes in his book Tourism Translation and Guide-Interpreting three basic criteria for the translation of tourist materials: a) Faithfulness (The translated version sh
25、ould be faithful to the content of the source text which includes historical stories, geographical descriptions, cultural background, etc.); b) Expressiveness (This refers not only to the intertextual coherence of the target text, but also the adaptation to the features of tourism language); c)Elega
26、nce(The translated version should preserve the aesthetic element in tourism language). In his point of view, the major principles guiding the English translation of Chinese tourist materials are: to be tourist-oriented and to aim at promoting Chinese culture.Research from the perspective of function
27、alism adopts skopos theory to 6guide the translation of Chinese tourist guide. It can be concluded that the translation of Chinese tourist guide should adapt to the English writing style so as to fulfill the vocative and informative functions.As for those studies on the translation of Chinese touris
28、t guide, there are systematic theoretical instructions. However, the target-language readers response is not sufficiently emphasized. There is still a long way to establish a complete and satisfactory theoretical framework in this newly developed field. The author of the thesis holds that Nidas func
29、tional equivalence works in guiding the translation of Chinese tourist guide, because Nidas concept of translating shifts from “the form of message” to “the response to the receptor” (Translating Meaning 1), thus avoiding a rigid linguistic translation from the source text to the target text.3 The A
30、pplication of the Functional Equivalence in the Translation of Chinese Tourist GuideThe translation of Chinese tourist guide plays an important role in publicizing and promoting Chinese tourism, so it is necessary to adopt different translation techniques to help transferring information to the tour
31、ists. In this part, the author analyzes the application of the functional equivalence in the translation of Chinese tourist guide. In order to present information to the target-language readers as much as possible, priority should be given to the reception and response of the target-language readers
32、. 73.1 The Importance of the Receptor “Receptor” is the addressee of the translations who actually reads or listens to the target text after it is produced. Nida attaches great importance to the role of receptor and the relationship between receptor and message by saying, “It is essential that funct
33、ional equivalence be stated primarily in terms of a comparison of the way in which the original receptors understood and appreciated the text and the way in which receptors of translated text understand and appreciate the translated text.” (Language, Culture and Translating 116). “In producing a fun
34、ctional equivalent translation one must be constantly aware of the capacity and motivation of receptors” (Jin Di whats more, according to Nida, ideal situation is that the target receptors response to the target text should be essentially the same to the original receptors response to the original t
35、ext. To 8some extent, receptors of the tourist guide can be regarded as communicators. They convey what they see and feel to other tourists who have never been to China yet. In fact, they are a bridge between China and the Western countries. Thus the receptor of the translation is of great importanc
36、e.3.2 Techniques Used in the Translation of Chinese Tourist Guide Based on the essence of the functional equivalence, some translation techniques are used to guide the translation of Chinese tourist. By using these techniques, the translation is adjusted from different perspectives to achieve a roug
37、hly equivalent response between the target language readers and the source languages readers.3.2.1 ConversionConversion is an approach to achieve the functional equivalence and increase readability of the translation in order to help the target-language readers comprehend the source text. Considerin
38、g the target-language readers reception and response, the translator can convert affirmative sentence into negative sentence or vice versa, or conversion between simple sentence and compound sentence or passive voice and active voice. The following examples will illustrate these methods respectively
39、. Firstly, conversion occurs between the affirmative sentence and the negative sentence.(1)西湖的景色真是美不胜收。The scenery of the West Lake is beautiful beyond description.（Lu Naisheng，Jin Yingying 936） In the example, “美不胜收” is in a negative tone in Chinese to express the great beauty of the West Lake. Whi
40、le it is translated as “beyond description” in an affirmative tone. Such a conversion between negative tone and affirmative tone is just in conformity with the reception and response of the receptor. If the English version is translated according to the original Chinese style; it will weaken the rec
41、eptors appreciation of scenic spot. Therefore, it can not achieve an equivalent response between Chinese and the Westerners. Secondly, conversion between simple sentences and compound sentences is the embodiment of different sentence structures between Chinese and English. Whats more, it is an impor
42、tant approach to achieve an equivalent response between the target language readers and the source languages readers. Chinese emphasizes parataxis. There are many coordinated clauses in a sentence. Words in a Chinese sentence can be loosely connected and the word order is flexible, while English emp
43、hasizes hypotaxis. The sentence is usually longer than a Chinese one. Words or phases should be coordinated grammatically and rules of order are rigid (Han Xu 52). Thus, it is natural to convert these short Chinese clauses into a longer and smoother English sentence. For example:(2) 三亚海岸线有 170 多公里长，
44、海滩沙质柔软，是理想的海水浴、日光浴场所。Sanya has a 170-odd-kilometer long coastline with good sandy beaches, affording ideal sites for sun and sea bathing.10(Lu Naisheng，Jin Yingying 28)In the example, the Chinese sentence is well organized by three coordinated clauses. If it is translated according to original Chine
45、se style, it will surely cause a tedious version. Therefore, “海滩沙质柔软 ” can be used as an adverbial to supplement the subject and translated into “with good sandy beaches”. In the translation “affording ideal sites for sun and sea bathing” is a present participle, whose logical subject is also the su
46、bject of the whole sentence. Thus, the version is a hypotactic one and reads smoothly.(3)扬州是一座古城，创建于公元前 5 世纪，由吴王夫差所建。Yangzhou is an age-old city which was first built by the Wu King Fuchai during the 5th century B.C.(Lu Naisheng，Jin Yingying 28)In this example, “which” and “during” are employed to l
47、ink up the sentence, thus avoiding missing any component of the Chinese version. If the English translation adopts the same sentence as its Chinese version, it will create a sentence which sounds unnatural to foreigners.The above three examples are both successful in achieving the equivalent response between the target-language readers and the source-language readers by using conversion.The third kind of conversion occurs between active and passive sentences.
