硕士学位论文-功能对等理论在商务英语翻译中的应用.pdf

沈阳师范大学 硕士学位论文 功能对等理论在商务英语翻译中的应用 姓名：梁昕 申请学位级别：硕士 专业：外国语言学及应用语言学（翻译） 指导教师：郝军 20100301 5 摘摘 要要 继中国入世之后，随着改革开放的推进，我国同世界各国的商业往来愈加 频繁，跨国企业间的合作不断深入。在商务沟通共同中，商务信息的有效交换取 决于商务翻译。因此，商务英语成为社会经济发展和英语语言自身发展的产物。 然而，国内的商务翻译理论研究相对匮乏。国内大部分的研究者所遵循的严复的 “信、达、雅”的标准更适合文学作品的翻译而不适合商务文本的翻译。 本文通过介绍奈达翻译理论的发展和分析商务英语的特点，证明将功能对 等理论运用到商务英语翻译中是可行的。 奈达的功能对等 “首先是意义上的对等， 其次是风格上的对等” 。为了证明这一理论能够应用于商务英语的翻译，本文不 但从意义和风格上的对等进行分析， 同时还研究了商务英语中的文化对等。 同时， 通过分析商务英语在语篇、功能和风格上的特点，证实了功能对等理论在商务英 语翻译中的可行性。 在此基础上，本论文通过大量的商务英语翻译译文，表明在文本的词、句和 语篇上都能达到意义和风格上的对等。此外，在商务英语翻译中，文化对等也是 不可忽视的重要因素。 这充分证明了功能对等理论是商务英语翻译可以依靠的理 论依据。 关键词：功能对等；商务英语；意义；风格；文化 3 abstract as chinas reform and opening-up policy after having joined the wto is pushed forward, the communication between china and foreign countries in the field of business trade becomes more and more frequent, while the cooperation among international enterprises has been expanded. in the process of business communication, the effective exchanges of communication depend on business translation. in this case, business english has become the result of social and economic development and the development of english itself. however, in china, the theoretical research of business translation is relatively insufficient. the translation criteria of yan fus “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”, which most translation researchers pursue is more suitable for literary works rather than the business texts. the thesis proves that it is feasible to apply the theory of functional equivalence to business english translation by introducing the development of nidas translation theories and the features of business english. as functional equivalence is concerned, nida refers to the equivalence “first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”. in order to prove that nidas theory can be applied to business english translation, the thesis not only analyzes it from the semantic and stylistic equivalence but also from the cultural equivalence in business english translation. meanwhile, by analyzing the textual features, functional features and the stylistic features of business english, it is proved that it is feasible to apply functional equivalence to business 4 english translation. on the basis of the discussion above, the thesis proves that the meaning and stylistic equivalence can be achieved at the lexical level, syntactic level and textual level with plenty of business english translation versions. furthermore, in business english translation, cultural equivalence is another vital element that can not be neglected. it is fully proved that the theory of functional equivalence is the theoretical guidance of business english translation. key words: functional equivalence, business english, meaning, style, culture 2 acknowledgements i am greatly indebted to a number of people. without their help, this thesis would not have been finished. i would like to express my gratitude, appreciation, and thanks to them. i wish to take this opportunity to express my genuine gratitude to all those who have offered me help in various ways in the process of finishing this thesis. firstly, i am most grateful to my supervisor hao jun. i owe her special thanks for the reason that her invaluable suggestions, insightful comments and painstaking corrections have contributed a lot to the completion of this thesis. i am fortunate and greatly honored to be her student. besides that, i will send my thanks to all the teachers of school of foreign languages of shenyang normal university, who gave me encouragement in my pursuit of study. whats more, my gratitude should be extended to my parents and my husband for their support. 9 chapter 1 introduction 1.1 background of the study as chinas reform and opening-up policy after having joined the wto are pushed forward, the communication and collaboration between china and foreign countries in the field of business trade becomes more and more frequent and important. it is reported that there are almost 1.6 billion people in the world who use english as their first language or second language in their daily life and nearly 90% of them use business english everyday. business english is showing its overwhelming strength as an important role in many fields, such as investment promotion, technology introduction, engineering contract with foreign countries, international finance, international insurance, international travel, international publication, overseas investment and so on. in this case, business english has been the result of social and economic development and the development of itself. nowadays, since english is an international language, business translation has become an indispensable tool for chinese businessmen whose native language is not english, because business translation is a critical process for them when they do business with their counterparts from english-speaking countries. 1.2 purpose of the study as a tool, in the exchange of cross-national commercial affairs, business english has been encountering a conflict in translation between supply and demand. because of the gradual expansion of international cooperation and the increasing 10 volume of business transaction, the demand of business english is on the rise. it is urgent for businessmen to master skills of business translation. business english is the category of english for specific purposes. it is usually used in business context for peoples business purposes. besides that, business english is different from other types, because it is mainly related to economic affairs. in order to achieve functional equivalence, business english translation should be treated with the help of functional analysis of the source text and the translation of it. 1.3 layout of the thesis by employing the theory of functional equivalence to analyze business english translation, the thesis can be divided into four parts. the first part is the introduction, in which the background of the study and the purpose of the study are introduced and pointed out. then the second part reviews the related literature, which includes the introduction of functional equivalence, features of business english and feasibility of the application of the theory of functional equivalence to business translation. as the introduction of the theory of functional equivalence is concerned, it is necessary to introduce the development of nidas theory of functional equivalence which has developed from formal equivalence and dynamic equivalence and then to functional equivalence. it is still necessary to get known about the development of the theory of functional equivalence in china. and the features of business english are summarized from the aspects of its textual features, functional features and stylistic features. the thesis emphasizes on the third part, which is about the application of 11 functional equivalence to business english and is further divided into three sections. the first two sections analyze semantic equivalence and stylistic equivalence respectively from the lexical level, the syntactic level and the textual level. and then the third section introduces cultural equivalence in business english translation, for which, it needs to be understood what cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural business translation is. in these sections, a lot of examples are listed to prove the authors viewpoints. the last part is the conclusion, analyzing the major findings and pointing out the limitations of the study and the suggestions for further research. 12 chapter 2 literature review 2.1 an introduction to the theory of functional equivalence in the past decades, the theory of equivalence had been paid more attention by translators. a distinguished american linguist and translation theorist, eugene a. nida, inherits some achievements from other translators and sums up his own system of theory. he gives a different definition of equivalence called dynamic equivalence and then develops it into functional equivalence, which is considered as the milestone in the study of translation equivalence. 2.1.1 nidas theory of formal equivalence it is necessary to introduce formal equivalence first so as to understand functional equivalence. in the book towards a science of translation, nida states that “one must in translating seek to find the closest possible equivalence: one which may be called formal and another which is primarily dynamic” (nida, 1964, p. 159). besides that, nida also believes “formal equivalence focuses attention on the message itself, in both form and content. in such a translation, one is concerned with such correspondence as poetry to poetry, sentence to sentence, and concept to concept. viewed from this formal orientation, one is concerned that the message in the receptor language should match as closely as possible the different elements in the source language. this means, for example, that the massage in the receptor culture is constantly compared with the message in the culture to determine standards of accuracy and correctness.” (ibid., p. 159) 13 nida (1964) defines this kind of translation as gloss translation, meaning that the translator has to reproduce the form and the content of the original as literally and meaningfully as possible as he attempts to carry out the equivalence perfectly. in this condition, the reader could “identify himself with a person in the source language context, and to understand as much as ha can of the customs, manner of thought, and means of expression” (p. 39). 2.1.2 nidas theory of dynamic equivalence in the book towards a science of translaton (1964), nida first puts forward the concept of dynamic equivalence. he says, “in such a translation (dynamic translation), one is not so concerned with matching the receptor-language message with the source language massage, but with the dynamic relationship, that the relationship between the original receptor and the message.”(1964, p. 159) xie tianzhen (2008), the chinese well-known translation theory researcher, also puts forward his view point that “dynamic equivalence is targeted at the absolute nature of expression forms and explores to combine the receptor and the behavior in his own cultural context” (p. 42). in another book of his, the theory and practice of translation, nida (1969) further explains the essence of “dynamic equivalence”, “dynamic equivalence is therefore to be defined in terms of the degree to which the receptor of the message in the receptor language responds to it in substantially the same manner as the receptor in the source language. this response can never been identical, for the cultural and historical setting are too different, but there should be a high degree of equivalence of response, or the translation will have failed to accomplish its purpose.”(p. 24) this shows that nidas 14 translation theory puts emphasis on the substantially same responses of the receptors in the source language and the target language. in his book from one language to another, nida develops his theory “dynamic equivalence” into “functional equivalence”. 2.1.3 nidas theory of functional equivalence initially, nida named his translation theory “dynamic equivalence” and attached more importance to dynamic equivalence. and then, however, his dynamic equivalence was superseded by functional equivalence in from one language to another. nida states that there is no difference between the meanings of these two concepts. the substitution of functional equivalence is just to stress the concept of function and to avoid misunderstanding of the term “dynamic”. for a long period of time, free translations were labeled dynamic equivalence. some translators believed that translation should only be focused on the content, but not the language form. nida (1993) emphasizes that “it is essential that functional equivalence can be stated primarily in terms of comparison of the way in which the original receptors understand and appreciate the text and the way in which receptors of translated text understand and appreciate the translated text” (p. 116). in 1969, nida changed the term “dynamic equivalence” into “functional equivalence” in his book the theory and practice of translation which was finished by taber and himself. nida (1993) explains that “translating means communicating, and this process depends on what is received by persons hearing or reading a translation. judging the validity of a translation can not stop with a comparison of 15 corresponding lexical meanings, grammatical classes, and rhetorical devices. what is important is the extent to which receptors correctly understand and appreciate the translated text. accordingly, it is essential that functional 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 the translated text understand and appreciate the translated text” (p. 116). nida gives a maximal and minimal definition of functional equivalence in language, culture and translation. he believes that such a view of functional equivalence implies different degrees of adequacy from minimal to maximal effectiveness on the basis of both cognitive and experiential factors. a minimal, realistic definition of functional equivalence could be stated as “the readers of a translated text should be able to comprehend it to the point that they can conceive of how the original readers of the text must have understood and appreciated it” (nida, 1993, p. 118). anything less than this degree of equivalence should be unacceptable. a maximal, ideal definition could be stated as “the readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it in essentially the same manner as the original readers did (ibid)”. the maximal definition implies a high degree of language-culture correspondence between the source and target languages and an unusually effective translation so as to produce in receptors the capacity for a response very close to what the original readers experienced. nida (1986) defined “functional equivalence” as “thoroughly understanding not only the meaning of the source text but also the manner in which the intended 16 receptors of a text are likely to understand in the receptor language” (p. 9). to him “all translating should aim at the closest natural equivalent of the message in the source language. in other words，a translation should communicate. this means not only the equivalent content of the message but, in so far as possible, an equivalence of the form.” (nida, 2004, p. 12) from nidas view, it could be comprehended that equivalence doesnt only mean the equivalent content but also the equivalent form. the change of form, as well as the content, will cause the change of meaning. so if a more or less formal correspondence is functionally equivalent in designative and associative meaning, then no change of form is needed. if a literal translation cannot achieve functional equivalence, there are five specific conditions under which adjustments of form should be made: when a literal rendering would give an entirely wrong meaning, when a borrowed term constitutes a semantic “zero” and is therefore likely to be filled with the wrong meaning by the receptor and when a formal correspondence involves a serious obscurity in meaning. 2.1.4 the development of the theory of functional equivalence in china from the 1960s to the 1980s, “translation equivalence” played a significant role in the development of modern western translation studies. but in china, things were quite different. prior to the 1980s, the concept of equivalence was not well-known among chinese translation scholars. the 1980s saw an avalanche of articles and works introducing western “translation equivalence” into china. in the beginning, equivalence theories were widely accepted by chinese scholars. some acclaimed that 17 the term “equivalence” in western translation was more objective and scientific than “faithfulness” in traditional chinese translation theory; and “western equivalence theory” was more scientific than traditional chinese translation theory, because one could evaluate translated texts quantitatively and qualitatively by taking “equivalence theory” as a translation standard. (ma, 2003, p. 89) nidas works were initially introduced into china in the 1980s. since then, chinese scholars turn to pay more attention to nidas theory. before the introduction of functional equivalence, translation studies in china were mainly limited to the static analysis of translation criteria. functional equivalence has provided new perspectives of translation. many chinese scholars, such as tan zaixi, began to focus on the study of nidas translation theory. nidas contribution to the field of translation primarily can be summarized briefly in three areas: 1) he introduces communication theory and semiotics into translation theory and put forward the principle of functional equivalence; 2) he also brings the latest research studies of modern linguistics into the translation theory; 3) he is the first to incorporate the response theory as one of the translation criteria. (zhou it is essentially a code in operation, or in other words, a code functioning for a specific purpose or purposes. thus we must analyze the transmission of message in terms of a dynamic dimension. this analysis is especially important for translating, since the production of equivalent message is a process, not merely of matching the parts of utterances, but also of reproducing the total dynamic character of the communication. without both elements the results can scarcely be regarded, in any real sense, as equivalent.” (p. 120) business english covers a lot of fields especially many aspects of economy. meanwhile, business english translation focuses on its effects on the target receptors and the conveying of information. therefore