However, the research on the translation of Chinese political terms is still inadequate. In this paper, the author makes a comprehensive study of the translation of Chinese political terms. This paper is made up of five parts including the introduction and conclusion.源[自*751^`论\文'网·www.751com.cn/

     The first part introduces the background, significance and aim of the research. Part two gives a literature review of the functional equivalence theory by introducing the former translators’ studies about functional equivalence both home and abroad. In the part three,  the definition and characteristics of Chinese political terms are talked about. In the part four, some methods of translation are discussed and analyzed one after another including literal translation, free translation and transliteration. Furthermore, this paper selects many examples to clarify how to achieve the equivalence in the process of translating Chinese political terms. This is the main part of the paper. Part five gives a conclusion of this paper including some limitations and suggestions for future studies.

2. Literature Review

     In translation history, Functional Equivalence is a variant of the comparable effect. Tylter, British translation theorists, was the first person who proposed the comparable effect theory. In 1790, in his book "On the Principles of Translation", he gave the "good translation" a definition: "A good translation is to completely convert the advantages of the original text to another language, enable those people in target language countries can clearly comprehend, strong feelings, just as people using the original language comprehension." This means that a good translation should enable people to have the same response in different language societies as that in the original one. A number of books and articles have described the concept of functional adequacy in translating as “dynamic equivalence”. The book called The Theory and Practice of Translation (1969) has set forth and discussed it in Toward a Science of Translating (1964) at length. Functional Equivalence is the same that of dynamic equivalence.

2.1 Equivalence studies at home  

     At the end of the 19th century, Yan Fu, proposed the three principle of translation—faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. He has contributed a lot to the development of translation of China. Afterwards, there is a great number of translators and translation theorist such as Lu Xun, Qu Qiubai and Ji Xianlin, etc. Here I will talk about other contemporary two scholars’ studies on the equivalence theory. They put forward a lot of translation theories similar to equivalence theory in the western countries. They are Tan Zaixi and Ma Huijuan. Tan Zaixi elaborately introduces the Nida’s translation theories, such as the development, the three phrases, main contents and its contributions. He makes us have a general knowledge of the theory and makes a elaborate analysis of the merits of Nida’s functional equivalence theory. He points out that in Nida’s view, the people who assume the tasks of judging are not ordinary people, but those people such as translators,scholars,critics and linguists(Tan Zaixi,2000:22). His book New Edition of Nida on Translation has grown greatly popular among readers during the past two decades. It can be regarded as a great book which gives a comprehensive review of Nida’s translation theories.