Abstract

Throughout the history of translation, equivalence has always been the focus of translation studies. And in the tide of translation in the twentieth century in China, a lot of translators translated The Isles of Greece written by Byron. Su Manshu, Ma Junwu and Zha Liangzheng are outstanding representatives among them. For the sake of this, the thesis is to probe into the following questions. Which aspect do the three versions pay more attention to respectively, formal equivalence or functional equivalence? What are the different translation strategies applied when contextual meaning goes incompatible against its form? Which version do the receptors prefer to or does the very version place focus on formal equivalence or functional equivalence in general? 

From the perspective of "Equivalence Theory" advocated by Eugine A. Nida and based on the detailed analysis of the three versions of translations, the writer of this thesis claims that Ma Junwu’s translation is typical of functional equivalence while Zha Liangzheng’s is characterized by formal equivalence. Su Manshu’s is somewhere between them. In order to answer the third question, a questionnaire targeting at English majors is designed. After the questionnaires are given out and data are collected and analyzed, the thesis hypothesis is proved to be true that formal equivalence is worth more attention if the target receptors are females while functional equivalence is more important if the target receptors are males.

Key Words: Formal Equivalence;     Functional Equivalence;     Receptor

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter One Introduction-1

1.1 Background Information-1

1.1.1 About The Isles of Greece and Its Poet-1

1.1.2 Three Translations of the Isles of Greece-2

1.2 Significance of the Research-2

1.3 The Thesis Hypothesis-4

1.4 The Overall Structure of the Thesis-4

Chapter Two Literature Review-6

2.1 Theoretic Framework-6

2.2 Current Situation of the Research-6

Chapter Three Methodology-8

3.1 Research Hypothesis-8

3.2 Subjects-8

3.3 Questionnaire-8

Chapter Four Results and Discussions-10

4.1 Statistics Result of the Research-10

4.2 Discussions-11

4.2.1 The Text Analysis-11

4.2.2 Discussions on Statistics Combined with Text Analysis-19

Chapter Five Conclusion-21

5.1 Major Findings-21

5.2 Limitations of the Study-21

5.3 Suggestions for Further Studies-21

References-23

Appendix-24