The Normativity Of Finance English And Its Translation

The speeding up of economic globalization process and China's after-WTO-entry opening up accelerate the upgrading of China's financial sector and its integration with the global financial system. Correspondingly, there has been an upsurge of enthusiasm for finance translation.Finance translation is a kind of technical translation, which possesses strong normativity lexically, syntactically and textually. Based on norm theory (Gideon Toury, 1995, Andrew Chesterman, 1997, Theo Hermans, 2004) and other related studies at home and abroad, the thesis focuses on the normativity of finance English, and illustrates the manifestations of normative lexical, syntactic and textual features. Furthermore, the thesis emphasizes that normativity should be complied with in E-C finance translation, and elucidates, with examples, the operational norms and their application.Norm theory (Gideon Toury, 1995, Andrew Chesterman, 1997, Theo Hermans, 2002) holds that translation is a kind of norm-governed activity. The activity of translation inevitably involves at least two languages and two cultural traditions, i. e., at least two sets of norm-systems on each level, which are the product of translators' selection among different languages, cultures, textual traditions. Toury argues that three kinds of norms are at the center of the translation behavior and process--- preliminary norms, initial norms and operational norms. Toury also holds that norms are socio-cultural specific, and thus, conventional, which means norms change, rapidly or slowly. Andrew Chesterman (1997) developed Gideon Toury's theory by taking other factors affecting norm forming into consideration---the original writer, potential readers, text-types and economic and ideological influences. Theo Hermans (2004) argues that norms can be strong or weak, and that technical translation (such as finance English) contains strong norms.The three typical features of finance English are accuracy, objectivity and normtivity. The normativity of finance English exists at lexical, syntactic and textual levels. At the lexical level, the normativity of finance English is mainly shown by the use of normative words, phrases, pecialized terms, numerals, etc; at the syntactic level, the normativity of finance English is mainly manifested by thezuse of normative declarative and imperative sentences, passive structures, elliptical sentences, etc; at the textual level, the indications include the normative use of capitals, noun reference, formats, etc.As a kind of technical translation, E-C finance translation must conform to the principle ofnormativity (胡庚申, 2001,陈士彬, 2002,让孝, 2002). A translation not conforming to normativity may cause misunderstanding and usually brings about economic losses, so finance translation at lexical, syntactic and textual levels must meet the requirements of related norms. According to Gideon Toury (1995), the translator should also pay attention to the ST linguistic features being copied in the TT which happens understandably when the translation is from a prestigious language or culture and the target language or culture is minor.To avoid mistakes in finance English translation, translators should be highly responsible and keenly aware of the unique feature of normativity in finance English and E-C finance translation, and try hard to meet its requirements. Besides, translators should have a good grasp of both English and Chinese, and have some basic knowledge of finance.