A Tentative Analysis on Dynamic Equivalence of Nida

Abstract: The translation theory of Nida, especially his principle of dynamicequivalence has tremendous impact on translation circles. And it is wildlyaccepted by the public. This paper shows some points of view on analysis ofdynamic equivalence.

Key words: Nida; Dynamic equivalence; readers’ responsesEugene A. Nida is one of the most distinguished and influentialcontemporary translation theorists in the west. His theory of translationdeveloped from his own practical work of translating and organizingthe Bible.

1. The definition of dynamic equivalence

Dynamic equivalence theory was first put forward in 1964. Beforedefining what is dynamic equivalence, Nida presents a new conceptabout translating. Translating consists in reproducing the closestnatural equivalent of the source-language message. (Nida, 2004)2. The nature of Nida’s dynamic equivalence

Nida believes that translation is communication, and he thinksthe word functional can be considered as a means of communication.

Consequently, the receptors can understand and appreciate thetranslating text as the same manner as the receptors in the source text.

(1) Abandoning traditional grammar and adopting lexical categoryto interpret semantic relation of words

In traditional grammar, the description of words depend more onparts of speech, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. If translators arelimited in linguistic form of the texts, the translation will sound asunnatural. For instance, the sentence of “She was reliablyinformed ” is translated as “她被很可靠地告知”. Nida reclassifywords as object, event, abstract, and relation instead of parts of speech.

Accordingly, the example above can be translated as “我得到的信息很可靠”。

(2) Considering kernel sentences to overcome those obstaclescaused by syntactic structure

Nida adopted the so called concept of “kernels” which iscoined in transformational grammar to lead translators to achieving aclosest natural translation. For example, the sentence “John ranquickly so that he hit Bill who was ill” can be separated as threekernels：“John ran quickly”, “Bill was ill”, “John hit Bill”. Thisprinciple can help translator depart the constraints caused by texts.

Dynamic equivalence theory of Nida was tentatively analyzedabove, concluding its definition, practice and limitations. This theoryis the most famous and influential theory about translation of Nida. Itprovides a new way of looking at translating and it is those limitationsthat offer us a new point to further study translation.

References：

[1]Newmark, Peter. A Text Book of Translating . New York:

Prentice Hall.1988.

[2]刘苾庆.《中西翻译思想比较研究》, 北京: 中国对外翻译出版公司, 2005.

[3]耐达. 《翻译理论与实践》, 上海: 上海外语教育出版社,2004.

[4]耐达. 《翻译科学探索》, 上海: 上海外语教育出版社,1964.

作者简介：郑羽茜（1994.2-），女，辽宁盘锦，陕西师范大学，2017 级硕士，英语笔译。