Eugene nida biography

My name is Eugene A. Nida. I was born in Okhlahoma city in 1914 and I’ve been a Christian my entire life. I’m proud to say that in 1936, I graduated from the University of California with honors. Myfirst contact with translation theory was at the Wycliffe Camp, and in that moment I realized that I was made for that. Then I became a member of the Wycliffe Bible Translators (a sister organizationof the Summer Institute of Linguistics) and after that I obtained my Master’s Degree in New Testament Greek. In the following years I gradually went switching to th ecumenical and the New Evangelical.But the height of my career surely was in 1943, when I received my Doctorate in Philosophy of Linguistics in the University of Michigan. If I must talk about the authors that have influenced me, Imay name in the very first place to Vinay and Dalbernet. Their book “Stylistique Comparée du Français et de l'Anglais” (Paris, Didier, 1958) agreed with my thoughts of using comparative linguistics as abase for translation theory. I cannot forget to mention Catford and his linguistic-functional approach. And at last but not least, Joseph Malone and his continuity with the transformationallinguistics. I believe that they were extremely helpful with my works and, I don’t like talking about them as influences, but minds which agree with each other (great minds think alike). I prefer looking at itas sharing points of view. Returning to translation and me, I think that I’ve brought many ideas to its field. The main ones I’m sure you all know it, or at least heard of it: the concepts of Dynamicand Formal equivalence. Dynamic is the quality of a translation in which the message of the original text has been so transported into the receptor language that the response of the receptor isessentially like that of the original receptors (in later years, i preferred more the term “functional” instead of “dynamic”). The New Jerusalem Bible or the God’s Word Translation, for instance, are...