【正文】 an understand the original text .” He also adds “functional equivalence requires not only the equivalent content of message, but in so far as possible, an equivalence of form.”In his book Language, Culture and Translation (1993), Nida put functional equivalence into two levels according to the degree of adequacy: the minimal equivalence and the maximum equivalence. The former is defined as “the readers of a translated text should be able to prehend it to the extent that they can conceive of how the original reader of the text must have understood and appreciated it” (Nida,1993:118). The latter indicates “the readers of a translation should be able to understand and appreciate it essentially the same manner as the original reader did.”(ibid: 116) Any translation less than the minimal degree is unacceptable. (Tan Zaixi, 1999: 2022) Functional Equivalence over Formal Equivalence If we see translation from the perspective of the readership rather than from that of the form of the translation, we can find another standard: to see whether the translation can be understood by the readers or not. A good translation should focus on the feedback of the readership, rather than whether the words used in the translation can be understandable or grammatical.Figure 1 shows the traditional testing practice of translation: the information sent by the original source is received by the original receptor, and the translator, who serve as both original source sender and receptor, sends translated information to the target receptor who lives in a different cultural and historical background. The traditional way of testing the translation is to pare the translated information with original information. So there es a question: the translator (tester) is too familiar with M1 to pare it with M2. Different from the traditional test which lay emphasis on the formal correspondence, the functional/dynamic equivalence adopt a new approach which focus on the reaction of the readers in both source language and target language. As is shown in Figure 2, the prehension of R2 to M2 is pared to that of R1 to M1 to check the quality of translation. If R2’s respond to M2 is equivalent to that of R1 to M1, then we can say the version is acceptable.S ——original source (sender) R ——translator M1——information R1——original receptor M2——translated information R2——target receptorAccordingly, in GWR translation, if translators value the quality of the English version by paring it with the original version, then this evaluation system is far from reasonable and is a static one. Actually, the participation of the readership can never be neglected. A qualified version will make sure that readers from either culture share almost the same feeling, that is, foreign readers get information about China the same way as Chinese readers did. To be more specific, what matters in GWR translation is not the formal resemblance but the readability. Nowadays, dynamic /functional equivalence enjoys priority over formal equivalence. “During the past 50 years, there has been a marked shift from the formal to dynamic dimension. A recent summary of opinion on translating indicates clearly that the present direction is towards increasing emphasis on dynamic equivalence.” (Zhang Nanfeng, 2000:39) Relevant Theories in ChinaEver since the western equivalence theory was introduced to the Chinese translation circle, heated discussion and related researches have been made.As early as the 7th century in the Tang Dynasty, XuanZang, a learned Buddhist and one of the greatest translators of the Chinese history, put forward a principle that translation should be “faithful and understandable to the populace”. To make his translation more readable, Xuangzang first adopts various methods in his translation practice, such as amplification, omission, borrowing, etc.Yanfu, another giant in Chinese translation history, introduces to China many western masterpieces ranging from politics to science technology. In his translation practice, he sets up an influential criteria for the translation circle, namely, “faithfulness(信),expressiveness(達(dá)), elegance(雅)”. By “faithful”, he means that meaning in the target text should be faithful to that of the original one. “Expressive” is the requirement of intelligibility of the target text that the translated text should be in accordance with the language rules of the target language. “Elegance” requires a translation to be esthetically pleasing. In his famous essay On Translation , Lin Yutang put up his standards of fidelity, coherence and beauty(真實(shí)、通順、美). He maintains that meaning of the translation should be faithful to the original, and that the language of translation should be smooth, coherent and aesthetically pleasing, which is a reinterpretation of Yanfu’s threeword Principle. In a word, Yan’s principle is somewhat similar to Nida’s functional theory.Yan’s 3word principle are further extended by Fulei(19081966), another eminent translator who puts forward the ultimate requirement for literary translation, namely “Shensi(神似)”. He argues that “ As for effect, translation should be like imitating a picture, seeking spiritual similarity rather than formal resemblance(翻譯應(yīng)像臨畫一樣，所追求的不在形似而在神似)” (Fu lei, 1951). What should be pointed out is that the preference for “Shensi” (being alike in spirit) in literal translation does not deny the significance of “Xingsi” (being alike in appearance). When the translator is faced with a dilemma as to whether to keep the appearance (grammatical or syntactic structure, etc.)or the literary spirit, he should , according to Fu’s principle, sacrifice appearance for spirit.Actually, Nida’s translation theory has been a heated topic in China for almost two decades. At first, Nida’ s theory is broadly introduced and discussed widely among translation scholars. As time goes by, some translators begins to question and chall