奈达翻译理论研究 第四章 笔记

Chapter four A comparative study of Nida’s theory and

Jin Di’s theory

Jin Di, on the basis of Nida‟s theory, he formulated his own theory of “equivalent effect”.

4.1 Jin Di’s Translation Theory

Jin Di is renowned for his translation theory of “equivalent effect”and his Chinese version of Ulysses.

4.1.1 A survey of Jin’s translation activity and translation study

In his work In Search of the Principle of Equivalent Effect (1989), he put forward his own theory of “equivalent effect”.

4.1.2 Jin’s view on translation before his reception of Nida’s theory

The gist of his argument was that “translating must meet the requirements of accuracy and smoothness.”

“Accuracy” meant the content of the translated text should be consistent with that of the original text.

“Smoothness”meant the language of the translated text should conform to the convention of the target language.

Accuracy and smoothness in translation were two sides of a coin, and one could not be separated from another.

What distinguished Jin from others was that he strongly objected to then the popular idea that “faithfulness should be given priority over smoothness when one of them has to be sacrificed”.

Jin mentioned more than once the close relationship between translation accuracy and target readers. He wrote:

A translation should be smooth and natural so that target readers do not feel big gaps between the two languages concerned. Accuracy and smoothness as a translation standard are like two sides of a coin, one cannot be separated from the other. If the reader cannot understand the so-called “accurate” translation and do not know what it means, there is of little significance for such “accuracy”. If the translator only pays attention to smoothness in his work, but ignores the consistency between the original text and the translated text, his translation is not legitimate.

4.1.3 Jin’s theory of equivalent effect and its relationship with Nida’s theory

In On Translation: with special reference to Chinese and English, Jin basically adopted Nida‟s “dynamic equivalence”, which was defined in terms of a dynamic relationship, namely, “the relationship of target language receptors to the target language text should be roughly equivalent to the relationship between the original receptors and the original text”.

The book mentioned above was acclaimed as “a masterpiece of combination of Nida‟s translation theory with Chinese translation with Chinese translation practice”.

Jin argued that Nida‟s theory was intended to guide Bible translation for evangelism, and the ultimate purpose of Bible translating was to make receptors “response to the translated message in action”. Thus, according to Jin, the concept of “response”in Nida‟s theory was not suitable for a theory of general translation. Jin