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Chapter 7 A Brief Introduction of Contemporary American Translation Theory——Examplified mainly by Nida

简析当代美国翻译理论——以奈达为例

尹媛 Yin Yuan, Hunan Normal University, China

1 Abstract

The contemporary American translation theory mainly consists of American structural school of translation theory, communicative theory school, and social semiotics translation school. American structural school of translation theory is based on the thoughts of American structuralist school; Nida, as the representative of Communicative theory school, thinks that translating is the a manner of communication and must regard the readers as the service object from the view of Social linguistics and communicative function of language; social semiotics translation school views language as a symbol phenomenon that cannot be ignored when it is explained and translated. Nida is the theorist who experienced these three periods and its theory and ideas saturate with a strong sense of their influence, therefore, this paper gives a brief introduction of the history of the contemporary American translation theory as exemplified by Nida's theory and other translators' theory. Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:42, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

2 Key words

History of American Translation Theories, Nida, American structural school of translation theory, communicative theory school, a social semiotics translation school

Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:45, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

3 Introduction

The contemporary American translation theory mainly consists of American structural school of translation theory, communicative theory school, and social semiotics translation school. American structural school of translation theory is based on the thoughts of American structuralist school; Nida, as the representative of Communicative theory school, thinks that translating is the a manner of communication and must regard the readers as the service object from the view of Social linguistics and communicative function of language; social semiotics translation school views language as a symbol phenomenon that cannot be ignored when it is explained and translated. As is known to all, in China, Nida's translation theory is the most widely known and deeply impressed among contemporary Western translation theories. Professor Tan Jinxi rightly classifies Nida's translation thought into three different stages: first, descriptive linguistics. Second, the stage of communication theory. Third, the stage of social semiotics . Generally speaking, we can summarize Nida's linguistic thoughts and translation thoughts as follows :(1) Nida is a universalist of language, who insists that all languages are equally expressive. What is expressed in one language can be said in another. (2) Nida's translation theory has undergone a transition from the tendency that translation is science to that translation is art. (3) Nida's basic translation thoughts can be summed up in the following three sentences: Translation is a communicative activity. Translation is to translate connotation. In order to translate meaning, it is necessary to change the form of language expression. (4) When it coms to the nature of translation, Nida proposed the famous concept of "dynamic equivalence", which was later renamed as "functional equivalence". Nida is the theorist who experienced these three periods and its theory and ideas saturate with a strong sense of their influence, therefore, this paper gives a brief introduction of the history of the contemporary American translation theory as exemplified by Nida's theory and other translators' theory. (Tan,2004:132)Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:47, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

4 The Characteristics of American translation theory

There are some mainly characteristics in the contemporary American translation theory. First of all, serialization and systematization of literary translation is the distinct feature of theory. After the World War II, lots of books of translation emerged in many countries. In terms of the whole western translation industry, the scope, forms, scale and achievements of translation after the Second World War are unmatched in any period in the history of western translation. German translation theorist P. W. Jumpelt called the 20th century "The Age of Translation". Research institutions and publishing houses vigorously made full use of human and material resources to translate, edit and publish various series of books, so as to compile and systematize the translation and publishing of western classics. Secondly, the scale of professional translation is unprecedented. Although western literary translation continued to flourish in the decades after the second World War, the 20th century has come to be known as the "Age of Translation" mainly because of its expansion into other fields. Thirdly, the translation organizations are everywhere. After the end of world War II, translators in western countries had mushroomed to establish various translation associations and set up various translation publications. Each association had its own purpose and purpose to carry out its work effectively. There were more translators' organizations in the United States than in any other western country. There were thirty organizations of translators of all sizes, among which the most well-known are the American Society of Translators, the American Federation of Linguists and the American Association of Literary Translators. Besides, machine translation developed rapidly during these years. The advent and development of machine translation is a remarkable event in the field of modern translation. The last one is that the translation works appeared one by one endlessly. As mentioned above, one of the major features of modern western translation studies is to bring translation issues into the field of linguistic research. Translation theorists, under the influence of the structural theory, transformation theory, function theory, discourse theory and information theory of modern linguistics, from the perspectives of comparative linguistics, applied linguistics, sociolinguistics, semantics, semiotics, logic, anthropology and philosophy, this paper tries to give new meanings and new contents to the ancient subject of translation studies, to propose new research methods, theoretical models and translation skills.(Tan Zaixi,2004:113) Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:48, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

5 The development of Nida's translation theory

It could be said that Eugene Nida is well known in the field of translation studies and linguistics in China, because his translation theory is the translation theory of contemporary foreigners introduced earlier after the opening of China's academic portal to the outside world, his translation view is also widely criticized by the domestic translation circle. During his academic career, Nida has worked in linguistics, semantics, anthropology, communication engineering, and other fields,also in Bible translation work. He is proficient in many languages, investigated more than 100 languages, especially some minority languages in Africa and Latin America. From 1945 to 1997, he has published more than 200 articles and nearly 40 books, both co-edited and co-edited. Among them, there are about 20 monographs on language and translation theory, and a collection of theses has been published.

Eugene Nida, the famous American linguist and translation theorist, proposed the concepts of "formal equivalence" and "dynamic equivalence" in his book Toward a Science of Translating (4th issue) in 1964. Later, in order to emphasize the communicative function of translation and to instruct translation practice better, Mr. Nida perfected and integrated the two concepts into the theory of "functional equivalence". As Eugene A. Nida defines, “Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” Nida's definition of translation indicates that translation is not only lexical equivalence, but also semantic equivalence, stylistic equivalence and stylistic equivalence. The equivalence in "dynamic equivalence" includes four aspects: lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence, text equivalence, style equivalence. Of these four aspects, Nida believes that meaning equivalence is the most important and form equivalence the second. (Nida, 2002:168) It is worth mentioning that this initiative is not to encourage students to focus on content and ignore form, but to pursue formal equivalence on the basis of content.

The information conveyed by translation includes both lexical information on the surface and deep cultural information. “Functional equivalence” pursues the consistency of readers’ mental responses, that is, the psychological reactions caused by the target text to the target audience should be equivalent to the psychological response resulted from the original text to the target text audience, which is the highest level of functional equivalence and the essence of this theory. Only if the reader of the target text can understand and appreciate the translated text in the same way as the reader of the original text can the target text achieve the lowest level of equivalence, which is the minimum standard required for translation. It is generally known in the translation field that the best translation version should be like the original work, but not the translation text. For the purpose of functional equivalence between the source text and the target text and avoid “translationese” as much as possible, the translator needs to break the barriers of language structure and made a breakthrough in shackles of corresponding form between two languages, no matter in literary translation or scientific translation.

From Nida’s point of view, the first problem that should be considered about to measure a translation version is to predict the readers’ reactions, and then to compare the responses of the readers and the original readers. In the Language, Translation and Culture, “functional equivalence” is defined as: the target language readers should be able to understand the translation in the same way as the source language readers. In this definition, it underlines the fairly similar feelings of the target language readers and the source language readers. The translators can find equivalence, restructuring forms and semantic deconstruction to achieve it, which involves “closeness”, “naturalness” and “equivalence”.

1）Early period—translation theory in a linguistic stage with distinct structural overtones

The first stage of Nida's translation thought is the descriptive linguistics stage, which focuses on the descriptive study of syntactic, lexical and semantic translation problems. Nida's representative works during this period were Bible Translating and Morphology: The Descriptive Analysis of Words. Nida's thoughts on linguistics and translation can be summarized as follows: First, Nida is a universalist of language. He argued that all languages have the same expressiveness, that is, what can be said in one language can also be said in another. Because Nida believes that human language systems have more in common than differences, there is a "common core" in human experience and expression. This characteristic is best demonstrated by the translation of the word "white as snow." If, for objective reasons, snow has never been seen in some parts of the world, then it is useless to translate it literally. In this case, Nida suggests three solutions: 1. If the people there have never seen snow, and the word "snow" is not in the language, but perhaps they have frost or something of the same type, they can use it to mean "white as frost". 2. Various languages often have some corresponding idioms to express the same meaning as "white as snow", such as "white as egret", although the expression way is different, but its extended meaning and connotations are similar or even the same. 3. If there is no equivalent idiom in the target language, the original meaning is simply "very white" or "very white". Nida's most commonly used example is the English phrase "spring up like mushrooms", which can be translated into Chinese with a second resolution: "bamboo shoots after rain".

It can be sure that language has personality as well as generality. Language differences mainly appear in the form of expression. For example, Chinese idiom, "pun", rhythms and the metrical and prosody of poetry all have distinct linguistic characteristics. The content contained in language can be translated, but the expression form of language is difficult to translate or even untranslatable.

Bible Translating obviously reflects the characteristics of translation theory with structural linguistics overtones, which lays the solid foundation for the "functional equivalence" and his other well-known translation theories proposed in the later period.

2) Middle period—Translation Science Theory and Translation Communication Theory

The formative period of Nida's translation theory is the second stage of his theoretical development -- the stage of translation communication theory. At this stage, Nida's translation thoughts experienced a change of cognition and attitude from the tendency to regarding translation as science to regarding translation as art. Nida's early efforts to apply linguistics to translation studies can also be seen in his many monographs and papers. Linguistics is a systematic subject with fixed rules, so Nida's early view of translation as a science is clearly expressed in the titles of monographs and papers such as --Explorations in the Science of Translation and The Science of Translation. Nida believes that the scientific study of translation is an important branch of comparative linguistics, which should focus on semantics and include all aspects involved in translation. At the same time, he felt that linguistic theory was of great help to the scientific analysis of translation. Therefore, the thought of translation studies based on linguistic theories is a thought that regards translation as a science. Similarly, the scientific analysis of translation will also provide new insights into linguistic theories. But even at this stage Nida acknowledges that the description of translation can be carried out on three functional levels: scientific, technical and artistic. As Nida's translation thoughts developed into communication theory and social symbol theory, Nida's definition and classification of translation gradually tended to be that translation belongs to a kind of art, and he believed that translators are all born, just like gifted artists.

In 1969, Nida wrote the book Translation Theory and Practice, which shows Nida's translation theory and thought during this period. In the stage of translation communication theory, Nida's translation ideas can be summarized as the following four points: First, it clearly puts forward the scientific concept of translation, and makes clear that translation is not only an art and a skill, but also a science. Nida's view that "translation is science" has had a profound influence on the western linguistics and translation theory world. However, Nida himself revised his view later, believing that translating is not a science, but translatology is a science. Secondly, the main development mark of Nida's second stage translation thought is to apply the research results of modern communication theory and information theory to the study of translation problems, and put forward the communicative theory of translation, which holds that translation is communication. Specifically, Nida believes that translation is a social communication activity across languages and cultures, and the primary task of translation is to make the translation clear to readers. Thirdly, Nida put forward the dynamic equivalence translation theory, which is the most famous aspect of Nida's translation theory. In the next chapter, we will explain and analyze the development and content of this theory in depth. Fourthly, Nida proposed a four-step translation process: analysis, transfer, restructuring and test. The object of analysis is the surface structure of the original text, so as to clarify the content and style, functional intention, pragmatic intention and other aspects of the original text. The result of analysis is the deep structure of the original text. The so-called surface structure is actually spoken, written words. A deep structure is a word or text containing all omitted elements and implied relations. For example, He is difficult to please. Its deep structure is "For others to please him is difficult". It analyzes whether the translation is correct or not and determines whether the translation is trustworthy (narrow sense) or faithful. Transferring is the process of transforming the analyzed corpus (source deep structure) from A language to B language (deep structure of the target language) in the translator's brain. The transfer takes place near the core sentence level, that is, at the level of the putative "basic structural elements" of a particular language. Reconstruction refers to the rearrangement, connection or deletion of a series of simple sentences that have been converted into the deep structure of the target language. In the reconstruction, the reconstruction methods adopted by English-Chinese translation and Chinese-English translation are completely different. In the process of E-C translation, the goal of reconstruction is to form sentences into a "bamboo structure" as far as possible, with few layers, and each part is mainly related through meaning. In the process of English translation, the common method is to rearrange each simple sentence according to the time or logical order of the semantic relationship of translation, and use appropriate reference means to carry out inter-clause reference and remove unnecessary connecting words. In the process of C-E translation, the goal of reconstruction is to connect the "bamboo structure" into the "grape structure" as much as possible. It requires proper grammatical means to link simple sentences together. The use of conjunctions, relations, or modifiers as unqualified elements to change a subordinate clause into a surrogate logical subject.

3）Important Stage—Functional Equivalence and Functional theory of translation

Functional equivalence is a quite common translation theory but the three points, naturalness, closeness and equivalence should be endowed clear and precise meanings to instruct the translating practice.

3.1 Functional Equivalence Theory

Functional Equivalence is one of the famous and important western translation theories. Besides the definition Nida gave it, there have been numerous opinions proposed by scholars and experts.

3.1.1 The Essence of Nida’s Functional Equivalence Theory

Eugene Nida, the famous American linguist and translation theorist, proposed the concepts of "formal equivalence" and "dynamic equivalence" in his book Toward a Science of Translating (4th issue) in 1964. Later, in order to emphasize the communicative function of translation and to instruct translation practice better, Mr. Nida perfected and integrated the two concepts into the theory of "functional equivalence". As Eugene A. Nida defines, “Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalent of the source language, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style.” Nida's definition of translation indicates that translation is not only lexical equivalence, but also semantic equivalence, stylistic equivalence and stylistic equivalence. The equivalence in "dynamic equivalence" includes four aspects: lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence, text equivalence, style equivalence. Of these four aspects, Nida believes that meaning equivalence is the most important and form equivalence the second. (Nida, 2002:168) It is worth mentioning that this initiative is not to encourage students to focus on content and ignore form, but to pursue formal equivalence on the basis of content.

The information conveyed by translation includes both lexical information on the surface and deep cultural information. “Functional equivalence” pursues the consistency of readers’ mental responses, that is, the psychological reactions caused by the target text to the target audience should be equivalent to the psychological response resulted from the original text to the target text audience, which is the highest level of functional equivalence and the essence of this theory. Only if the reader of the target text can understand and appreciate the translated text in the same way as the reader of the original text can the target text achieve the lowest level of equivalence, which is the minimum standard required for translation. It is generally known in the translation field that the best translation version should be like the original work, but not the translation text. For the purpose of functional equivalence between the source text and the target text and avoid “translationese” as much as possible, the translator needs to break the barriers of language structure and made a breakthrough in shackles of corresponding form between two languages, no matter in literary translation or scientific translation.

From Nida’s point of view, the first problem that should be considered about to measure a translation version is to predict the readers’ reactions, and then to compare the responses of the readers and the original readers. In the Language, Translation and Culture, “functional equivalence” is defined as: the target language readers should be able to understand the translation in the same way as the source language readers. In this definition, it underlines the fairly similar feelings of the target language readers and the source language readers. The translators can find equivalence, restructuring forms and semantic deconstruction to achieve it, which involves “closeness”, “naturalness” and “equivalence”.

3.1.2 Review about Functional Equivalence Theory

In the On Nida's Functional Equivalence Theory, Zhao Dandan proposes the importance of wholeness of the target language and culture, specific language environment and audiences of target language. Functional equivalence theory aims at a completely natural way of expression. In order to achieve functional equivalence, these three factors are indispensable factors for translators. (Zhao,2011:54-55)

As Wang Hua writes in the paper An analysis of Nida's "functional equivalence" theory for the guidance of translation practice, the theory of "functional and equivalence" mainly guides translation practice by using the following four criteria: information communication; the delivery of the spirit and style of the original work; the smoothness of language in line with the grammar rules and expression patterns of the translation; similarity readers’ reactions.(Wang, 2010:70-71,105)

The paper written by Huang Yuanpeng analyzes and summarizes the four types of problems on the basis of Nida's functional equivalence from the papers of linguistic core-journals in China in the past fifteen years, and puts forward the view point that functional equivalence should be applied and interpreted from its theoretical system, which is also testified by means of exemplification and testing. (Huang,2010:101-104)

3.2 The Guiding Significance of Functional Equivalence Theory to the Translation Practice

Nida said that conscientious translators seek the most natural equivalence. In fact, a natural translation means no grammatical and stylistic stiffness in expression, and avoids translationese because it is faithful to form, finally causing unfaithfulness to the translation of the original communicative function. Undoubtfully, the excessive stress on “naturalness” will certainly weaken the achievement of “functional equivalence” due to the consequence of “naturalness”. Therefore, proper application of the principle “naturalness” is an indispensable part in the translation practice, particularly academic English papers translation.

In "functional equivalence", "closeness" has a very close and complex relationship with "naturalness". On the surface, "closeness", meaning that the translation should be close to the information given by source language, holds "naturalness" in check which is revealed after a close reading of Nida's masterpiece. "Closeness" and "naturalness" are like two ends of a straight line, representing two extremes. In fact, they reflect the contradiction between content and form in translation, which is an thorny issue for translator to deal with in the translation practice, especially in the translation of academic English papers, its form and content equally crucial.

“Equivalence” is the core word of equivalence theory in translation application. There is not completely or absolutely equivalent translation, because the most naturalness and closest equivalent translation is still at a certain distance from the original text itself. “Equivalence” is the best balance between the two extremes. In the process of translation, the most effective way to achieve functional equivalence is to find a both close and natural way of expression between languages and cultures. Therefore, in the process of translation, it is one of the elements at the heart to find the “equivalent” translation. Under the guidance of “naturalness”, “closeness” and “equivalence”, the translation practice of this time is constantly revised and improved, so as to produce a relatively high-quality translation finally.

3.3 The Application of Functional Equivalence

The development of Nida's functional equivalence theory is summarized as follows: the diction of translation is smooth and natural, the content is expressive and the reader responds similarly. As we mentioned before, there are a great number of difficulties in the translation of different kinds of literary forms by applying functional equivalence. At the lexical level, terminology and nominalization are the most important features of academic English texts. This is because the purpose of some works is to disseminate information related to majors, it is necessary to use specialized terms in specific fields. Meanwhile, nomination helps simplify the text to avoid the use of clauses. The two features are difficult to find the proper corresponding translation in Chinese. Besides, the translation of inflected forms, intricate sentence structures, heavily used passive voice, and the use of nonfinite structure also need to be translated guided by the functional equivalence.

“Naturalness” is the most basic criteria of translation. In order to offer the fairly similar feelings which source language brings to the readers; translation must be naturalness as the sense of target language.Translators commonly apply functional equivalence theory to perfect the translating on three levels, lexical level, syntactic level and textual level. Translation at the lexical level under the guidance of “naturalness” is the most basic one. There will be several certain corresponding translations of a word or a phrase for the translator to select based on the literal meaning and the original context.Sentence, consisted of words and phrases, possesses more flexible translation patterns by analyzing and transforming the word form and the sentence structure. Meanwhile, more translation versions to choose gives translators more challenges and troubles. On the higher level, discourse level, the translation becomes more complicated and flexible. At this time, in addition to translating under the guidance of “naturalness”, it should be combined with the context to choose the proper wording of translation.As Liu Zhong De's translation theory says, "faithfulness, expressiveness and closeness", closeness is crucial for the translator to measure the accuracy of the information transmission. In academic English papers, closeness plays an important role undoubtfully for the importance of the content in translation. Actually, following the principle of “closeness” on lexical level is just to choose the most appropriate and the best suitable translation version of the word or phrase. Perhaps sometimes some approaches are needed in the translation process, such as the meaning extension or shrinking, specification or generalization. Closeness not only refers to the semantic changes but also changes in part of speech in the translation process that can make sentence meaning more precise and accord with the expression of Chinese habit therefore a sentence can be translated into completely different versions to choose a more accurate and smoother one. On textual level, more and more attention on closeness is paid on the cohesion and coherence of the context. Compared to the explicit cohesion in English, there are a wide variety of implicit coherence ways in Chinese. "Equivalence" is the core word of the functional equivalence theory. Good translations must achieve functional “equivalence” by comparison with the original text. Nida emphasizes that there is no completely absolute equivalence, and there is a certain distance between the most natural and the closest equivalence and the original text itself.

“Naturalness” and “closeness” contain yet restrict each other. And in most cases, there are contradictions between them. “Equivalence” is the golden section point between the two extremes of “closeness” and “naturalness”. It is suggested that the most effective way to realize functional equivalence is to find the closest and the most natural expression of the source language between languages and cultures or to achieve it by reorganizing the original forms and semantic structures in an appropriate way. Only when “functional equivalence” comes true in the translation, can the result of “the source language readers and the target language readers feel roughly the same” be produced. Based on Nida' definition and illustration of the translation criteria “equivalence”, the translation process on lexical level under the guidance of equivalence aims to find out the most natural and closest corresponding meanings to the words and phrases. Equivalence on syntactic level are mostly concerned about sentence-type changing, words permutation, words adding, words changing and wording in translator’s own words according to the concrete context, higher and more complicated than on lexical level. To achieve both naturalness and closeness, it is important not only to deal with the translation of words and grammar simply, but also to construct connections with the preceding content. Translation instructed by equivalence on textual level are always related to the conversion of word class and the choosing of meaning. Because the text can be divided into two kinds of conditions, it requires to analyze the translation context, language, structure, function and discourse cohesion and coherence, etc., to have the whole English discourse translation quality meet the corresponding requirements, and the demand of readers of translation, fully revealing the thoughts, emotions and content in the original text.

4) Late period—sociosemiotic approach

The development of "social semiotics" has a long history, which can be traced back to Saussure's theory of semiotics. Balhudarov (1985) was the representative who introduced semiotic theory into translation studies. In his book Language and Translation, he clearly pointed out that language unit, like any other symbol, is composed of expression form and meaning content, and meaning is only a symbolic relationship. Bakhtin (Hu Zhuanglin, 2001) believes that "the world is a text, semiotics or symbolic system. Signs have materiality, history, sociality, ideology, communication and dialogue. Nida believes that language must be regarded as a sign phenomenon, and its interpretation cannot be separated from its social environment. This theory mainly proposes the study of the meaning of translated texts from three perspectives: referential meaning, interlocutory meaning and pragmatic meaning. Nida believes," The great advantages of semiotics over other approaches to interlingual communication is that it deals with all types of signs and codes, and especially with language as the most comprehensive and complex of all the systems of signs which human employ." (Nida, 2001: 376) Translation refers to translating meaning of contents. The core of social semiotic translation is semiotic meaning. According to Morris' semiotic meaning, any symbol is an entity composed of three parts: Symbol carrier; a sign represents a sign. an interpretant, namely, the effects of symbols on symbol recipients (interpreters) (Chen Hongwei, 1996:91). The relationship between these three parts is the three aspects of semiotics meaning, that is, formal meaning (the relationship between symbols and other symbols), existential meaning (the relationship between symbols and the signified object) and practical meaning (the relationship between symbols and interpreters). They each have their own laws and the complete meaning of the sign is the sum of all three. Some symbols have only one meaning, some have two meanings, and some have all three. Morris also applied his view of the meaning of signs to the study of language. He believes that language also has three aspects : intralingual meaning—the meaning reflected by the relationship between symbols; referential meaning—the meaning reflected by the relationship between the symbol and the signified object; pragmatic meaning—the meaning reflected by the relationship between symbol and interpreter. Morris's research is of great significance to the study of semiotics, especially to the study of language translation and also helps to deal with cultural factors in translation. Culture can be regarded as a set of symbol system, which constitutes a huge social and cultural symbol network, and each set of which is composed of numerous sub-symbol systems. Each symbol system has a code representation. The translator decodes and codes in this overlapping and intricate network of two social and cultural symbols. When decoding, it should be remembered that the original text is only a collection of many symbolic systems reflected by the linguistic symbolic system. These symbol systems all exist in the society and are social, and they are connected with each other rather than isolated. When coding, it is necessary to remember that the meaning reflected by the symbol system related to the source text is identical and different in reference, interlocution, and pragmatics, which are closely related to the symbol world of man, animal and society. Decoding and coding cannot be isolated from society. It helps translators broaden their horizons and deepen their understanding of language, culture, and society. Because it requires the study of text on the basis of context, register, code including all sign systems and society outside of language. The meaning of all symbols expressed by character symbols must be connected with the society. Translation ability is not only a reflection of language ability, but also a reflection of cultural deposition. Research of translation theory and practice by social semiotic translation method, to avoid the deviation in the epistemology and methodology, to translate and related knowledge of many disciplines melt in a furnace, the translator can get mastery of knowledge, learn to comprehensive, multiple points of view understanding, translation and the social culture closely, effectively solve the problem of translation practice. Nida, on the other hand, based on the translation theory of social semiotics, emphasizes that everything in the text has meaning, including the form of speech, so the form should not be sacrificed easily. Rhetoric features of language play an important role in language communication, so we should not neglect these features in translation. At this stage in social semiotics, Nida dropped the term "dynamic equivalence" and replaced it with "functional equivalence," in an attempt to make the terms more comprehensible. Nida no longer uses the distinction between grammatical meaning, signified meaning and associative meaning, but divides meaning into rhetorical meaning, grammatical meaning and lexical meaning, and each meaning is divided into two levels of signified meaning and associative meaning. Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:49, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

6 Conclusion

The modern American translation theory mainly comprises of American structural school of translation theory, communicative theory school, and social semiotics translation school. American structural school of translation theory is based on the thoughts of American structuralist school; Nida, as the representative of Communicative theory school, thinks that translating is the a manner of communication and must regard the readers as the service object from the view of Social linguistics and communicative function of language; social semiotics translation school views language as a symbol phenomenon that cannot be ignored when it is explained and translated. Nida is the theorist who proposes these three translation ideas and lays the firm foundation for the development of translation theory later, therefore, it has practical significance for us to study and summary the translation theory of the contemporary America, especially the thoughts of Nida. Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

7 References

Guo Qianzhong.(2002).郭建中.[当代美国翻译理论].Contemporary American Translation Theory.Wu Han: Hu Bei Education Press. Xie Tianzhen.(2009).谢天振.[中西翻译简史].A brief history of Chinese and Western translation. Bei Jing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press. Tan Zaixi.(2004).谭载喜.[西方翻译简史].A brief history of Western translation. Bei Jing: The Commercial Press. Nida, E. (2002). Language and Culture: Contexts in Translating. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Xu Jun, Mu Lei.(2009).许钧，穆雷.[翻译学概论].Introduction to Translatology. Nan Jing: Yilin Press. Hu Zhuanglin.(2001).胡壮麟.走进巴赫金的符号王国.Walking into Bakhtin's Symbolic kingdom.Foreign Language Study.(2)10-15. Chen Hongwei.(1996).陈宏薇.社会符号学翻译法研究.A Study of Translation Methods in Social Semiotics.Journal of Ocean University of Qingdao.(3):88-93. Yang Liping.(2006).杨丽萍.从符号学视角探索语际翻译.An Exploration of Interlingual Translation from the Perspective of Semiotics.Lanzhou University.8. Written by --Yin Yuan (talk) 13:50, 8 December 2021 (UTC)