奈达翻译理论研究 第一章 笔记
奈达翻译理论研究
A Study on Nida’s Translation Theory 马会娟著
English Abstract
This book makes a systematic rearch on Nida’s translation theory, clarify some misunderstandings concerning his theory, disclo its true nature and explore its validity and limitations in literary translations. Examples from Today’s English V ersion and Today’s Chine V ersion 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 Chine. 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 Chine translation of Ulyss 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 li
terary 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 Chine and English.
CHAPTER ONE Introduction
1.1 Reasons for further rearch on Nida’s translation theory
His works on translation t 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 focud attention on traditional Chine theories, especially Y an 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, miotics and
anthropology, Chine translation scholars took great interest in his theory.
Chang Namfung summarizes 4 kinds of misunderstandings regarding Nida’s theory in Ch
ina:
1)“Dynamic equivalence” is only an ideal translation ctiterion
2)Nida’s theory is unfit to guide translation practice between Chine and
English becau it grows out of translation experience among
Indo—European language
好哥好嫂3)Nida’s takes “reader’s respon” 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-respon theory” at all.
Nida’s discussion about kernels and deep structures is bad on mantic level while Ch
omsky focus 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 Chine 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 phas on his writings in chronological order:
1)the pha of descriptive linguistics, 1943—1951
2)the pha of cross—cultural communication. 1952—1960
3)the translation pha, 1961—1973
4)the mantic pha, 1974—
Message and Mission was the most significant book of the cond pha. Gentzler suggested that it was in this book that Nida first outlined his translation theory. This book marked the beginning of the third pha.
In the third pha, in the book, Toward a Science of Translating, Nida first
a dvanced 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.
边缘性人格障碍For Nida, translating means translating meaning.
The most reprentative book of this pha was From One Language to Another. In this book, Nida not only further explored the issues of meaning of adopting a sociomiotics approach, but substituted “functional equivalence” for “dynamic equivalence” just to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings.
1.3 A survey of Nida’s translation theory
We will review Nida’s translation theory from two important aspects:
柳如眉
1)the scientific study of translating
2)the principle of “ dynamic equivalence”
1.3.1 Nida’s scientific study of translating
“Science of translating” means “for just as linguistics may be classified as a descriptive science, so the transference of a message from one language to another is likewi a valid subject for scientific description. He suggests that it is more effective to transfer the meaning from the source language to the receptor language on the kernel lever, becau on this lever the linguistic meaning of the original test is structurally the simplest and mantically most evident.
情感散文Nida advances a three-step translation process: ○1to analyze source-language
expressions in terms of basic kernel ntences ○2to transform the kernel forms of the source language into the equivalent kernel forms of the receptor language ○3to transform the kernel utterances of the receptor language into the stylistically appropriate expression
This process of translating helps the translator consciously avoid literal translation.
俄国二月革命The principle of “dynamic equivalence” (which was later modified into “functional equivale
nce”) has a scientific basis as well. It is solidly founded on information theory or communication theory.
Nida es translation as a communication event.
Nida holds that in translating, the first thing one should do is to understand thoroughly the meaning of the source text. Inadequate understanding of the original text is the major cau for failures in translation. In describing referential meaning of words or phras, he us various techniques of mantic theories such as chain analysis, hierarchical analysis and componential analysis.
建构区教案小班It is evident that Nida’s theory of translation is not merely linguistic—oriented, but sociolinguistic—oriented.
1.3.2 The principle of dynamic equivalence
Translating consists in producing in the receptor language the clot natural equivalent to the message of the source language, first in meaning and condly in style.
In his 1969 textbook The Theory and Practice of Translation, “dynamic equivalence” is defined “in terms of the degree to which the receptors of the message in the receptor lan
guage respond to it in substantially the same manner as the receptors in the source language”.
In From One Language to Another, the expression “dynamic equivalence” is superded by “functional equivalence”. The substitution of “functional equivalence”is just to stress the concept of function and to avoid misunderstandings of the term “dynamic”.
In Language, Culture and Translation, “functional equivalence” is further divided into categories on two levels: the minimal level and the maximal level.
The minimal level is defined as “the readers of a translated text should be able to comprehend in to the point that they can conceive of how the original readers of the text must have understood and appreciated it”. The maximal level is stated as “the esntially the same manner as the original readers did”.
In Nida’s theory, “dynamic equivalence” is defined with “receptors’ respon”as its nature.
Nida’s concept of translating shifts from “the form of message” to “the respon of the receptor”.
In Nida’s view, when determining whether a translation is faithful to the original text or not,
队歌歌词 the critic should not compare the formal structures between the source text and its translation, but compare the “receptors’ respon”. If he finds that the the reader in the receptor language understands and appreciates the translated text in esntially the same manner and to the same degree as the reader in
the source language did, such a translation can be evaluated as a dynamic equivalent translation.
Nida’s theory of “reader s’ respon” emphasizes the importance of the acceptance of a translated text by the intended reader in the receptor language, and avoids the subjective evaluation of the critic.
Nida’s theory has practical significance for literary translation in some aspects, but it is a fact that it fails to address the issue of transferring aesthetic values of literary work in literary translation.
The inadequacy of Nida’s theory for literary translation is made manifest in 3 aspects: ○1Nida pays little attention to the transference of style in his translation process: ○2Nida’s discussion of style is very general and superficial: ○3Nida’s functional approach to style d
oes not provide effective means to transfer aesthetic values of literary work.
户太八号葡萄1.4 The guiding principles of the rearch
The task of translation theory is to study translation problems, no translation problems, no translation theory (Newmark 1998).
1.5 The methodological approach
Different views of translation are determined by different views of language and culture.
In Nida’s view, each language has its own genius, and there are no such things as superior or inferior languages. Anything that can be said in one language can be said in another, and human languages have more in common than in difference. It is this view of language that provides the theoretical basis for his belief in translatability.
Nida insists that language and culture are cloly related. Language is a part of culture, and the meaning of word or phra cannot be determined out of linguistic and cultural contexts.
