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 Today’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 comparative 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 against 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. Attempts 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 developments 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 and 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 scholars. 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