Comp Stud Trans EN 3

A Comparative Study of Two English Versions of Shijing from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence Theory

Abstract: As the first general collection of poetry in ancient China, Shijing is unique in style and rich in words and phrases. The translation of Shijing has a history of several hundred years, and scholars at home and abroad have never interrupted the study of Shijing, but the study of the translation of it is still in its initial stage. Nowadays, the multicultural background of the times highlights the contemporary significance of the study of the English translation of Shijing even more. This paper intends to apply Nida’ s functional equivalence theory to analyze the two versions of English translations by Xu Yuanchong and Jame Legge of Shijing from four perspectives: stylistic, rhythm, diction and imagery. The following conclusion can be drawn according to the analysis: Shijing has a unique style and rhyme scheme, so the translation should firstly achieve parity with the original text in terms of style and form, and secondly the harmony of sound and rhyme should be focused on, so that readers of the translation version and readers of the original text will have a similar impression of the form of Shijing. Therefore, the translators should consider the words and phrases, and strive to reproduce the imagery of the original text or the emotion conveyed by that imagery while ensuring the fluency of the translation in order to achieve content equivalence.

Key Words: Shijing, English Translation, Functional Equivalence Theory

摘要： 《诗经》作为我国古代第一步诗歌总集，文体独特，词句丰富。《诗经》的翻译已经有几百年的历史，国内外学者对《诗经》的研究从未中断过，但《诗经》翻译研究仍处于起步阶段。现如今，多元文化的时代背景更加突显《诗经》英译研究的当代意义。 本文旨在运用奈达的功能对等理论，从诗歌的文体、韵律、用词及意象四个角度，来分别对许渊冲和理雅各的《诗经》英译本进行分析，从而得出了以下结论：《诗经》中的诗歌有独特的文体和押韵方式，翻译时应首先在文体形式上达到与原文对等，其次应注重音韵的和谐，从而让译文读者与原文读者对《诗经》的形式有相似的印象。因此，译者应斟酌词句，在确保译文流畅的同时争取再现原文意象或该意象所传达的情感，以达到内容对等。

关键词：《诗经》，英译，功能对等理论

1. Introduction Comparative study is of great significance in the study of literary texts in translation, especially in comparing different translation versions of the same literary work. However, it is necessary to first clarify the theoretical framework applied in it before a specific translation comparison analysis can be brought out.

  1.1 Eugene Nida’ s Functional Equivalence Theory

This paper in an attempt to analyze the two English versions of Shijing under the guidance of Eugene Nida’ s functional equivalence theory. Functional Equivalence Theory, one of the most important and practical translation theories all around the world, especially in the United States and Germany, was proposed by Eugene A. Nida, the famous American linguist, translator, and translation theorist. This translation theory has affected the western translation field a lot, which led to the result that Eugene Nida is considered as “the patriarch of translation study and a founder of the discipline”(Snell Homby, 1988).

Originally known as dynamic equivalence and formal theory, the functional equivalence theory is one of the most outstanding contributions that Eugene Nida had made to the field of translation study. The theory was explained as “ translation is the reproduction of the message of the source language from semantics to style in the most appropriate, natural and reciprocal ways”(Nida Eugene, 1964:159), so as to set a standard for the conversion between source and target languages, and narrow the gap between the two. Nevertheless, before the theory was clearly defined in 1969, three stages of its development emerged. Finally, Nida defined the dynamic equivalence in his work The Theory and Practice of Translation that “quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the response of the receptor is essentially like that of the original recpetors”(Nida A. Eugene, Charles R. Tabler, 1969:200).

Later, Nida realized the concept of “dynamic equivalence” had been misunderstood. In order to avoid this phenomenon, he put forward the term “functional equivalence” in the book From One Language to Another written together with De Ward in 1986 to replace the dynamic equivalence. Functional equivalence emphasizes not only the equivalence between the function of the source culture in the source text and the function of the target culture in the target text, but also the “function” is considered to be a property of the text. What’ s more, the functional equivalence embodies both the equivalence of content and form. In other words, the first principle of functional equivalence is to ensure the target text is precisely equivalent to the source text, for the meantime, the equivalence of translation style should also be taken into account by translators. The core of functional equivalence is also reflected in Nida’ s definition of translating, “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 A. Eugene, Charles R. Tabler, 1982).

  1.2 A Brief Introduction of the Two Versions of Shijing

Shijing, or The Book of Poetry, Book of Odes, is a collection of 305 pieces of poems from the Western Zhou Dynasty to the Eastern Zhou Dynasty. Generally, Shijing can be divided into three sections: Feng, Ya and Song according to different contents respectively. One of the remarkable features of Shijing is the frequent use of simile and metaphor, and the application of “association”, which means starting a poem by drawing forth images quite irrelevant to the central subjects. What’ s more, Shijing contains a larger number of cultural characteristics, so it is hard to totally reproduce the source text in another language. Each of the following English versions has its own features with a lot of investigation and research by the two translators.

     1.2.1 Legge’ s Version
     1.2.2 Xu Yuanchong’ s Version

2. Literature Review

  2.1 Previous Studies on Functional Equivalence Theory
  2.2 Previous Studies on the English Translation of Shijing

3. A Comparative Study of the Two English Versions

  3.1 Formal Equivalence 
     3.1.1 Stylistic
     3.1.2 Rhyme
  3.2 Functional Equivalence
     3.2.1 Diction
     3.2.2 Imagery

4. Conclusion