English Translation of Chinese Neologisms from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence
1. Introduction
Language is dynamic. Every day there are new words coming into use in languages and there are many others fading away from lexicon. Chinese, one of the oldest languages in the world, still possesses this dynamism. Language serves as a tool of communication and interaction, thus it reflects the social changes, and meanwhile social changes find their expressions in language, which leads to the advent of neologisms. The appearances of new inventions, new technologies, new ideas and new social phenomena are capable of bringing neologisms into languages.
In the twentieth century, Chinese neologism has undergone three stages: the first stage was from 1919, after the May 4th Movement; the second stage was from the establishment of People’s Republic of China to 1978; the third stage began with the policy of reform and opening-up. Entering into the new century, the development of society has hasted their paces and the communication between centuries becomes more frequent. Language is witnessing the changes. During recent years, an increasing number of new words has been adopted into Chinese. Therefore, as the translator, he or she shoulders the responsibility of translating the new words properly in order to convey the Chinese culture to other countries, and this has proved to be a great challenge. Though there are many dictionaries and handbooks which study Chinese neologisms and the translation of Chinese neologisms, the study of neologism translation is far from enough. This thesis will discuss the translation strategies in order to accomplish the translation of Chinese neologisms efficiently by adopting the theoretical foundation of Eugene A. Nida’s Functional Equivalence.
The thesis is divided into six parts. The first part is introduction; the second part focuses on the origins and characteristics of Chinese neologism; the third part puts its emphasis on the theoretical basis---Functional Equivalence, which was proposed by the famous American
Language is dynamic. Every day there are new words coming into use in languages and there are many others fading away from lexicon. Chinese, one of the oldest languages in the world, still possesses this dynamism. Language serves as a tool of communication and interaction, thus it reflects the social changes, and meanwhile social changes find their expressions in language, which leads to the advent of neologisms. The appearances of new inventions, new technologies, new ideas and new social phenomena are capable of bringing neologisms into languages.
In the twentieth century, Chinese neologism has undergone three stages: the first stage was from 1919, after the May 4th Movement; the second stage was from the establishment of People’s Republic of China to 1978; the third stage began with the policy of reform and opening-up. Entering into the new century, the development of society has hasted their paces and the communication between centuries becomes more frequent. Language is witnessing the changes. During recent years, an increasing number of new words has been adopted into Chinese. Therefore, as the translator, he or she shoulders the responsibility of translating the new words properly in order to convey the Chinese culture to other countries, and this has proved to be a great challenge. Though there are many dictionaries and handbooks which study Chinese neologisms and the translation of Chinese neologisms, the study of neologism translation is far from enough. This thesis will discuss the translation strategies in order to accomplish the translation of Chinese neologisms efficiently by adopting the theoretical foundation of Eugene A. Nida’s Functional Equivalence.
The thesis is divided into six parts. The first part is introduction; the second part focuses on the origins and characteristics of Chinese neologism; the third part puts its emphasis on the theoretical basis---Functional Equivalence, which was proposed by the famous American