Abstract:Chinese traditional translation theory consists only of translation principles without concrete methodology and it can not be applied to practical translating. This paper gives a brief account to functional translation theory, probes into its theoretical basis and makes convincing exposition of it by using relevance theory so that it enriches its content.
Does language shape culture or does culture shape language? Language is a mirror, in front of which culture is reflected. As a student majoring in English as a foreign language, I’d like to take this advantage to discuss the cultural differences between Chinese and English, and the application of Functional Equivalence in English version of On the Teacher.
Furthermore, the study will be based on functional equivalence, which is one of the most famous translation theories from Nida. Comparing with the former translation theories, the distinction of the functional equivalence theory is in the meantime bringing translation into the Linguistic Study field but also brings culture and the western readers’ reflection into the Translation Study field. The functional equivalence is to let the reflections and feelings of the readers from both source language and target language to be equal. In this paper, I am going to elaborate on the cultural differences reflecting in the Luo Jingguo translated version of On the Teacher from the aspect of different languages including words, phrases, sentences, and paragraphs. The purpose of this paper is to discuss whether the theory is incarnated in “On the Teacher” that translated by Mr. Luo Jingguo.
Key words: functional equivalence, On the Teacher, target language, source language
中文摘要:《古文观止》是自清代以来最为流行的古代散文选本之一，该书是由清人吴楚材、吴调侯于康熙三十三年，公元1694年选定的为学生编的教材。《古文观止》所选之文上起先秦，下迄明末，大体反映了先秦至明末散文发展的大致轮廓和主要面貌共222篇。本书入选之文皆为语言精炼、短小精悍、便于传诵的佳作。
《师说》一文是我国家喻户晓的文学精粹，它文字优美，细想境界超凡脱俗，表现了中国人对教师这一职业的理解和华夏文化的智慧。本文以美国翻译理论家尤金·奈达著名的翻译理论——功能对等理论为基础，从不同的语言层面包括词汇和短语、句子、篇章对罗经国翻译的《师说》进行探讨。与以往的翻译理论相比较，功能对等理论的不同之处在于它将翻译纳入语言学的研究领域，同时，它还将文化以及西方文论中的读者反应纳入到翻译研究的领域。所谓功能对等，即目标语言对受者产生的影响要与源语言对源语言读者产生的影响对等。
基于功能对等理论并结合英译中国古典文学经典资料传播中国文化的功能,译者需遵循两条原则: 1.尽可能地传递汉语古文资料中所包含的文化内涵; 2.兼顾目标语读者的解码能力。功能对等理论主要包括三个方面：意义、风格以及读者反映。本文的目的在于探讨该理论在罗经国先生所译的《师说》中是否得到了充分的体现。
关键词：功能对等、《师说》、译入语、源语
