功能对等在英文歌曲歌词翻译中的应用英语学专业.docx

题 目 功能对等在英文歌曲歌词翻译中的应用 Acknowledgments My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to Professor Yang, my supervisor, for her constant encouragement and guidance. She has walked me through all the stages of the writing of this thesis. Without her consistent and illuminating instruction, this thesis could not have reached its present form. Second, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Professor Yang who led me into the world of translation. Last my thanks would go to my beloved family for their loving considerations and great confidence in me all through these years. I also owe my sincere gratitude to my friends and my fellow classmates who gave me their help and time in listening to me and helping me work out my problems during the difficult course of the thesis. ii Abstract This paper analyzes the lyrics’ translation principles and methods of the English songs by selecting some of popular English songs with the characteristics corresponding with their Chinese translations, which is based on the functional equivalence translation theory summed up by the linguist Eugene Nida. The translation theory is put forward by Nida during his long-term of Bible translation practice, which has been widely used in literary works translation. The lyrics, as the most similar form to poetry also belong to literary genre. So the functional equivalence translation theory should be followed when we are translating lyrics. This paper mainly discusses the translation methods of English lyrics from the following five aspects: lexical equivalence, syntactic equivalence, discourse equivalence, stylistic equivalence, and audience’s response equivalence which has been added by author after referring to the experiences of a lot of translators’ works and papers. Key words: English song lyrics’ translation;Eugene Nida; functional equivalence iv 摘 要 本文通过选取歌词具有特色的英文歌曲及相应的中文译本作为素材，基于语言学家尤金.耐达提出的功能对等翻译理论对英文歌词的汉译原则和方法进行分析和总结。该翻译理论是由尤金·耐达在圣经翻译的长期实践中总结出来的使用于文学性翻译的翻译理论。而歌词作为与诗歌最相近的一种文学体裁，其翻译也能遵循功能对等翻译理论。文章主要从词汇对等，句法对等，篇章对等，文体对等和作者在参考各译者总结的经验后提出的听众反映对等这五个方面对英文歌词的翻译方法进行分析论述。 关键词：英文歌词；歌词翻译；尤金·耐达；功能对等 v Contents 云南民族大学毕业论文(设计)原创性声明 i Acknowledgments ii Abstract iii 摘 要 iv 1. Introduction 1 1.1 The Theory of Translation Equivalence 1 1.2 The Importance and Difficulties of English Songs’ Lyrics Translation 2 2. Literature Review 3 3. The Application of Equivalence Theory to English Songs’ Translation by Analyzing Classic Examples 4 3.1 Application of Lexical Equivalence 4 3.2 Application of Syntactic Equivalence to Sentence Structure and Grammar 5 3.3 Two Aspects of Passage Equivalence from Original Version to Chinese Translating 7 3.3.1 Culture Context 7 3.3.2 Scene Context 8 3.4 Stylistic Equivalence ----- Mastery of both SL and TL 9 4. Additional Equivalence ---- Audience Response Equivalence 12 5. Conclusion 14 References 15 vi 1. Introduction Listening to songs as the main entertainment and recreation plays an important role in people’s lives, and with the help of current development of social networks, the proportion of English songs has greatly enhanced. Music streaming apps are the priority choice for people when they want to listen to music. People can easily hear any type of music from all over the world. Among these songs English songs have a great proportion. In those software, the English lyrics are generally equipped with Chinese translations, but a lot of them can not accurately express the exact meaning of the original version due to the translators are lacking of basic knowledge of translation and understanding to the culture of English-speaking counties. Although melody is an important part to every song, and it also bears the emotions, but inaccurate translation of lyrics will affect the audiences’ responses and emotional expression to the original version. So this article will introduce some basic rules of English songs’ lyrics translation by analyzing classic Chinese translations. 1.1 The Theory of Translation Equivalence Functional equivalence theory was proposed by Nida, an American linguist who was the former president of the American Language Institute and took lead of translating the Bible. The main academic activities in his life were revolved around the translation of the Bible. In the process of translating the Bible, Nida has developed a set of translation theories by himself based on reality, which eventually becomes one of the classics of translation studies. The core concept of his theory is “functional equivalence”. The so-called “functional equivalence”, is trying not to translate word by word rigidly, but to achieve dynamic equivalence between the source language and target language. In this theory, he noted that “Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source l