Chinese Translation of English Human Body Idioms Based on the Functional Equivalence Theory

Abstract

There have existed a large number of idioms related to human organs in both English and Chinese, which are set phrases or sentences abstracted from language. They form an essential part of the whole vocabulary of language and have been used for a long time, which reflect the national colors of the native speakers and are said to be considered as the sinew of the language possessing various cultural characteristics. It is because those idioms bear certain features of ethnic cultures that the human body idioms translation becomes a real problem for translators. So it’s necessary for translators to do their utmost to pursuit the most proper way of translation. Only under proper translation strategies can the human body idioms be translated with the national features and convey the meaning of the original .This thesis is about Chinese translation of English human body idioms based on Nida’s equivalence theory. After the general understanding and introduction to the source and characteristics of English idioms and the general comparison between Chinese idioms and English idioms associated with human body, much more practical methods of the idioms translation, such as rhetorical devices, are discussed in this thesis.