Functional Equivalence and Business English Transl

1FunctionalEquivalenceandBusinessEnglishTranslationI.IntroductionBusinessEnglish,abranchofESP(EnglishforSpecialPurpose),begantobestudiedabout20yearsago.TheEnglishinvolvedinvariousfieldsincommercialactivities,suchastechnologytransfer,foreigntrade,theintroductionofforeigninvestment,internationalfinancing,transnationaltourism,internationaltransportation,isasawholecalledbusinessEnglish.Withthedevelopmentofglobalizationofworldeconomy,economicalexchangeshavebeenbecomingmoreandmorefrequent.Englishhasbecomeanindispensablelinguisticcommunicationmeansintheworldeconomicfield.ThereforebusinessEnglishbecomesmoreandmoreimportant.AndthetranslationofbusinessEnglishisbecomingmoreandmoreimportant.ManyscholarshavebeendevotedtostudybusinessEnglishbothathomeandabroad.InChina,therearemanyresearcheshavebeendoneonbusinessEnglishtranslation,andleavelotsofresearchworks,includingXiaoManjun’s“CorrectUnderstandingandChoiceofWordMeaningandBusinessEnglishTranslation”,ZhangYong’s“OnCorrectUnderstandingofLexicalMeanings,ZhouLiren’s“ApplicationofDynamicEquivalenceinBusinessEnglishTranslation”,LiuFagong’s“ExploringintothePrinciplesofChinese-EnglishBusinessTranslation”andLiaoYing’s“EnglishForInternationalBusiness---Theory,LanguageandPractice”andsoon.Inliao’sresearchwork,Liaohassummarizedl3featuresofbusinesscontractsandheholdsthatinternationalbusinesspracticalwritingsshouldbewrittenonsevenCs(completeness,clearness,concreteness,conciseness,courtesy,considerationandcorrectness).Amongtheforeignresearchers,EugeneA.Nida’stheory“functionalequivalence”hasexertedagreatinfluenceonChinesetranslationfield.Heproposedthe“dynamicequivalence”intranslatingtheBibleandmadeitsuccessful.Andthen,inthebookFromOneLanguagetoAnother,Nidabeginstousetheterm“functionalequivalence”toreplace“dynamicequivalence”forambiguity.Accordingtohim,“functionalequivalence”isnearlyequalto“dynamicequivalence”.JustasNidasaid,“Translating2consistinginreproducinginthereceptorlanguagetheclosestnaturalequivalentofthesourcelanguage,firstintermsofmeaningandsecondlyintermsofstyle.”BothdomesticandforeignscholarsareworkingonthebusinessEnglishanditstranslation.Mostofthemaredoingontheskillsofhowtotranslatetheterminology,andlongsentenceinbusinessdocuments.AndmanyeffortsaremadeonthetheoryofbusinessEnglishtranslation.AndalsosomescholarsareworkingonthefeaturesofbusinessEnglish.II.Theorystudy:EugeneA.Nida’stheoryoffunctionalequivalenceEugeneANidawasborninthecityofOklahomain1914．HegraduatedfromCaliforniaUniversityin1936．Threeyearslater,hegothismaster’sdegreeontheNewTestamentoftheBibleintheUniversityofSouthernCalifornia.In1943,NidawonhisdoctoraldegreeinlinguisticsfromtheUniversityofMichiganunderthesupervisionofCharlesC．FriesandBloomfield．Nidaproposedthat“therearefundamentallytwodifferenttypesofequivalence:onewhichmaybecalledformalandanotherwhichisprimarilydynamic.”(Nida,2004:159).Informalequivalenttranslations,thetranslatorshouldtryhisbesttoreproduceliterallyandmeaningfullytheformandcontentoftheoriginaltext.Andinordertoachieveconsistencyinwordusage,thetranslatoralwaystranslatesaparticularwordinthesourcetextbythecorrespondingwordinthetargettext.Itissimilartoword-for-wordtranslation.Therearesomeexamples.Forexample:We’llgetintouchwithourmanufacturersandtrytoadvancethetimeofdelivery.(我们将和厂家联系，尽量把交货时间提前。)WouldyoupleasemakeyourlowestquotationCIFSanFrancisco?(请报旧金山最低到岸价。)Indynamicequivalenttranslations,Nidapointedoutthattherelationshipbetweentargetreadersandthetargettextshouldbesubstantiallythesameasthatexistingbetweenoriginalreadersandthesourcetext.AndthenNidachangedthetheoryof“dynamicequivalence”intothe“functionalequivalence”.Heclassifiedfunctionalequivalenceintotwodegrees:minimalandmaximaldegree.“Amaximal,ideal3definitionoffunctionalequivalencecouldbestatedas:thereadersofatranslatedtextshouldbeabletounderstandandappreciateitinessentiallythesamemannerastheoriginalreadersdid.(Nida,2004:118)“Aminimal，realisticdefinitionoffunctionalequivalencecouldbestatedas:thereadersofatranslatedtextshouldbeabletocomprehendittothepointthattheycanconceiveofhowtheoriginalreadersofthetextmusthaveunderstoodandappreciatedit.”(Nida,2004:118)Thetranslationwillbeunacceptableifthedegreeofequivalenceislessthantheminimalequivalence.Andforthelevelofmaximalequivalence,itisonlyidealandimpossibletoachieve.Thefunctionalequivalenttranslationcanbedefinedas“theclosestnaturalequivalenttothesource-languagemessage”andthe“closestnaturalequivalent”,isexplainedbyNida(1964:l66)asfollows：a)Equivalent，whichpointstowardthesourcelanguagemessage．b)Natural，whichpointstowardthereceptor1anguage．c)Closest，whichbindsthetwoorientationstogetheronthebasisofthehighestdegreeofapproximation．“Basically,thewordnaturalisapplicabletothreeareasofthecommunicationprocess;foranaturaltranslationmustfit(1)thereceptorlanguageandcultureasawhole,(2)thecontextoftheparticularmessage,and(3)thereceptor-languageaudience.”(Nida,2004:166-167)Throughthosethreepoints,translatorcandotranslationactivitieswell.Thetheoryof“functionalequivalence”givesmorefreedomandflexibilitytothetranslator.Inth