功能对等视角下《静海》（节选）英译汉翻译实践报告

本文是一篇英语论文，本文包括《宁静之海》序言和前九章的翻译实践报告。本文在分析了青年成人文学作品的特点，特别是《宁静之海》的特点和奈达功能对等理论指导青年成人文学作品翻译的可行性后，着重从词、句、文、文化四个层面分析了青年成人文学作品的特点静海与功能对等理论。通过本章从四个层面分析了青年成人文学的翻译策略、翻译方法和翻译技巧，希望能为该领域的翻译研究和翻译项目提供一个很好的范例。此外，在本章最后还提出了一些局限性和建议。

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Background of the translation project
Young-adult fiction is written and published for adolescents and young adults,roughly ages from 12 to 18 years old. As the early books and indispensable pabulum forteenagers, young-adult fiction plays a significant role in their psychological development.While the genre is designed for teenagers, approximately half of young-adult fictionreaders are adults. With the increasingly growing international cultural exchanges, thetranslation of young-adult fiction works should be a part of efforts to keep up with theglobalization, enabling domestic adolescents and young adult readers to experienceforeign young-adult literature.
Hence, the book named The Sea of Tranquility is chosen carefully to be translated inthe translation practice. The Sea of Tranquility is one young-adult, romance novel by KatjaMillay. This book is a novel of fiction which is a rich, intense, and brilliantly imaginedstory about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.Literature fictions like this should be translated as literacy has become anotherdevelopment need of young adults.
However, the study of the translation of young-adult literature is a late starter anddoes not draw too much attention in our country. The unfortunate reality is that fewacademics play a part in international translation community of Children’s Literaturewhich includes the young-adult literature. There were only 3 monographs which are aboutthe translation research of Children’s Literature in our country (Zhang, 2014). What’smore, based on the analysis of articles about the translation study of young-adult fictionsof CNKI, most of them are under the guidance of either skopos theory or reception theory.As a result, this report is going to research the translation of the young-adult fiction TheSea of Tranquility from the perspective of Nida’s Functional Equivalence theory.
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1.2 Purpose and significance of the translation project
By means of combining the Functional Equivalence and the young-adult literature1.2 Purpose and significance of the translation projectBy means of combining the Functional Equivalence and the young-adult literaturetranslation, this thesis aims to fulfil four purposes. First, the author is going to find outappropriate translating strategies, translation methods as well as translation skills ofyoung-adult works from the perspective of Functional Equivalence, showing thefeasibility of Functional Equivalence theory in the translation of young-adult works.Second, through the translation, more and more Chinese adolescents and young adultreaders have a chance to learn more about western culture. Third, this report will providepractical experience for translators who are engaged in translating similar literary workswritten for an audience of 12-18 years old in the future. The last but not the least, thisreport is expected to push for the progress in domestic researches of the translation ofyoung-adult literature.
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Chapter 2 Translation Process

2.1 Pre-translation preparation
As The Sea of Tranquility was designated as the material of the translation practice,the author did not set about the Chinese translation immediately. In order to understand thebackground of the source text well enough, it was essential to read the whole text carefullybefore the translating project got started. What’s more, it was important to formulate thebasic principles to be followed in the translation practice. Through those principles, it wasclear for the translator to know about what readers needed as well as what strategiesshould be adopted in the translation practice.
In this stage, the author first nailed down the levels of lexicon and grammar of thetarget language. According to Nida’s Functional Equivalence, the receptors’ responseshould be considered in the translation. “The message has to be modified to meet thereceptor’s linguistic needs and cultural expectation” (Li, Huang & Bao, 2005) and torealize the naturalness in the receptor language. As The Sea of Tranquility is a story abouta girl and a boy in the school, the readers are expected to be mostly young generations liketeenagers. Therefore, the author decided to use readable language in the translation.
In addition, because The Sea of Tranquility is a literary novel, the literariness shouldbe presented in the translation as well. In this case, it was indispensable to read someparallel texts such as Flipped. The book Flipped is also a famous Young-adult fictionwritten by Wendelin Van Draanen. Mostly, this novel describes the school life and lovebetween the two protagonists Juli and Bryce, which is pretty much similar to the way TheSea of Tranquility is carried on. In addition, the story of Flipped is also told from twoalternating viewpoint as similarly as The Sea of Tranquility goes. Therefore, the Chineseversion of Flipped could be a very brilliant example for the translation of The Sea ofTranquility in terms of language, culture, and style. Besides, the theory was essential toguide the translation practice. Before conducting the translation, Nida’s FunctionalEquivalence theory was chosen to guide the translation practice.
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2.2 Procedures of translation
Under the guidance of Functional Equivalence, the author adopted Nida’s three-stagesystem of translation which consists of analysis, transferring and restructuring. Theanalysis of the source text of The Sea of Tranquility is a key part of the entire translationprocess. The author analyzed the surface structure of the grammar, rhetoric, vocabulary ofthe source language, identified all semantic features and figured out the relationshipsbetween all parts.
In the process of transferring, the author focused on ambiguous expressions andcultural features. For example, in the sentence “I’m not afraid of death anymore”, themeaning of the phrase “afraid of death” is unclear. It could be being afraid of what causeddeath, being afraid of the process of dying or being afraid of being dead. Such an occasionalso occurs when it comes to the lexical level and rhetorical level. The author made moreefforts in the process of analysis whenever that happened.
The last step is restructuring. The author modified the language which had beenanalyzed and transferred, so as to achieve the most appropriate and equivalent translationfor the target readers. In this process, aparting from presenting the deep structure of thesource language by the surface structure of the target language, many other aspects shouldalso be worried about such as the language style, genre and culture, etc...
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Chapter 3 Functional Equivalence...........................................9
3.1 Introduction to Functional Equivalence........................................ 9
3.1.1 Dynamic Equivalence...........................................9
3.1.2 Functional Equivalence................................... 10
Chapter 4 Case Study...........................................16
4.1 Functional Equivalence at lexical level......................................16
4.1.1 Free translation...............................17
4.1.2 Adaptation................................... 18
Chapter 5 Conclusion................................................34
5.1 Experience and gains............................................34
5.2 Limitations and suggestions.............................. 35

Chapter 4 Case Study

4.1 Functional Equivalence at lexical level
Nida (2001) proposed that words are strongly related with their contexts and culturalbackground. It is responsible for the translator to make a satisfactory translation byaddressing the meaning of words in an appropriate way. The translator should not pursue amechanical translation. Literary translation is not a simple conversion from the sourcelanguage to the receptor language, but a reproduction of the artistic beauty and the sourceauthor’s intention in the receptor language, which is based on a thorough understanding ofthe original text. Words are basic elements of one language. Therefore, when it comes tothe translation of words, not only the referential meaning but also the connotative meaningis expected to be translated by analyzing the context. For this purpose, the translationmethods involving free translation, adaptation and literal translation with annotation areadopted under the guidance of Functional Equivalence theory.
4.1.1 Free translation
Nida’s Functional Equivalence theory believes that, in order to achieve the FunctionalEquivalence between the original text and the translation text, some methods could beused in the process of translation. Nida also believes that Functional Equivalence is notliteral equivalence in an exact way. Sometimes, in order to convey the information of thesource text more clearly and accurately, the translator is allowed to use free translationmethod when he or she fails to guarantee the equivalence both in content and form.
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Chapter 5 Conclusion

5.1 Experience and gains
First, it is highly necessary to be well-prepared before the translation practice starts.For example, what kind of texts will be chosen by the translator? The translator shouldlearn the whole content and features of the source text in advance, the background of thesource author as well, which is to produce an equivalent translation in both meaning andstyle. Furthermore, what theory will be adopted in the translation practice? Is the theoryfeasible? What’s more, it is essential to read some similar texts to be one of guides for thetranslation activity. In the process of the translation of The Sea of Tranquility, the authortakes Nida’s Functional Equivalence as the theoretical foundation, uses idiomatic languageand employs translation strategies, translation methods as well as translation skills so as toreproduce a target text with the beauty and style in the source text.
Second, when it comes to the translation of words, the translation methods involvefree translation, adaptation and literal translation with annotation. In terms of thetranslation of sentences, the translation methods and skills, such as omission, amplification,reorganization and free translation, enable the target readers to smoothly understand whatthe source author wants to express and it can be accepted without the translationese. As forthe translation of text, cohesion and coherence should be taken into consideration seriously.When the translator works on some words and sentences which are related to Englishculture, the translation strategy domestication is given the priority to enable the receptorlanguage readers to get the meaning of the target text smoothly. The translation methodborrowing is highly recommended if there are culture-loaded words with the samemeaning in the target language. What’s more, four-character idioms are also used to makea similar culture-loaded translation for the target readers.
The last but not the least, language style is unique for a literary work. It is crucial towork out the language features of the target text by reading it thoroughly and reviewing itmany times. Only by this way can the style of the source text be represented in thetranslation. Meanwhile, under the guidance of Functional Equivalence, the language styleis well represented in the target text. Hence, the Functional Equivalence could be seen as agood choice to guide the translation of literary works.
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