This essay tries to analyse how Zhu Chunshen’s translation of He Tang Yue Se achieves equivalence, and enables the target receptors to understand and appreciate ST in essentially the same way as the original receptors do from the perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory in the aspects of selection of lexicon, syntactic structure and English rhetoric.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Previous Study

He Tang Yue Se, the masterpiece of Zhu Ziqing, has been regarded as one of the greatest prose in modern Chinese literature. It has attracted generations of Chinese translators take a stab at translating the piece of writing into English. Up to now, there are four English versions of He Tang Yue Se. In 1985, Wang Jiaosheng translated the first version and published on the fifth issue of English World. In 1992, Zhu Chunshen translated the second version and published on the first issue of Chinese Translators. In 1999, Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie translated the third version and published on the fifth issue of English Learning, and in 2006, Li Ming made the fourth in his own book Translation Criticism and Appreciation. All these four versions have their own respective features.

As collected in CNKI, lots of researchers and scholars have studied these different English versions. In 1998, Li Zhi made his comments on Zhu Chunshen’s translation. He claimed that Zhu’s translation not only conveys the aesthetic beauty of ST, but shows readers the emotion of it, which is very important in translating essays. (Li Zhi, 1998: 32) In 2002, Gan Wenping made a study of Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie’s translation. On one hand, he analyzes the translation of some words, on the other hand, he finds that this translation makes it convey the ST’s spiritual essence, and reproduces aesthetic beauty in target text (TT).（Gan Wenping, 2002: 520）In 2005, Li Ping also made an analysis of Zhu Chunshen’s translation. He claims that Zhu Chunshen conveys the aesthetic beauty of the ST, and succeeds in making “best words in best order” in his translating.（Li Ping, 2005: 34）And some postgraduates make a comparative study of three translations of He Tang Yue Se translated by Wang Jiaosheng, Zhu Chunshen, and Yang Xianyi and Dai Naidie about thematic progression, drawing conclusions about the way of thematic progression working to connect clauses.  源'自:吹冰`!论~文'网www.chuibin.com

However, up to now, there is not much attention to Zhu Chunshen’ translation of He Tang Yue Se from the perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory.

2.2 Introduction to Functional Equivalence Theory 

Equivalence plays a dominant role in translation. Despite the efforts a number of scholars at home and abroad have employed for duration of centuries, the attempt at reconciling all the standpoints into one still fails. This part is going to introduce Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory which proves to be considerable influential in translation practice. 

Nida established the theory of “dynamic equivalence” in 1969 in the book The Theory and Practice of Translation, which later became one of the most influential theories in translation field. He wrote: “translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” (Nida, 2004: 12) Dynamic equivalence pursues the closet natural equivalence between the original and the target language. Later Nida used functional equivalence substituted for dynamic equivalence, which he considers “seems more satisfactory in describing the degrees of adequacy of a translation and provides a much sounder basis for talking about translation as a form of communication since the focus is on what a translation does or performs.”(Nida, 2004: 234) Functional equivalence focuses that the response of TT and the ST should be essentially the same by both of the readers. Here equivalence is relative. It means proximity rather than identity. Nida proposes that functional equivalence has two levels: the maximal and the minimal levels. The maximal level means that readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it in essentially the same manner as the original readers do. However, it is just an ideal realm which could never be achieved, especially when the culture and aesthetic differences are obvious between the two languages. The minimal level means the readers of a translated text should be able to understand and appreciate it to the point where they can conceive what the original readers of the text must have understand and appreciate.