A Contrastive Study on Two English-Translated Texts of the First Memorial to the King Before Setting off for War Under Functional Equivalence Theory

Abstract

The First Memorial to the King Before Setting off for War reads sincerely. It manifests emotions of loyalty and chastity. It is highly approved of and considered as a representative work of its kind. This paper, taking functional equivalence theory as a basis and contrasting two English-translated texts respectively by Luo Jingguo and Xie Baikui from perspectives of word-level and syntactic-level equivalence, attempts to locate a translated version that can make the reading experience of the target-text receptors more similar to that of the original receptors. According to the analysis, it has been found that Luo Jingguo’s version can elicit a more ideal response from the target-text receptors and that it realizes functional equivalence in a better way.