Information Flow In Business "Good-news" Letters And Its Reproduction In C-E/E-C Translation

Business letter, as one of the major channels for business communication, has played a vital important role to tie business partners. By using it, business people ask and answer requests, promote sales, settle problems, express thanks or sorry and even make deals etc.. As the economy is flourishing worldwide, numerous companies expand the trade scale beyond boundaries. People need communication without verbal obstacle. Then the translation of business letters has come into being. A good translated letter brings benefits to the business dealing, or it can be quite harmful. So, the study of translation of business letters is necessary and worthwhile.The study on C-E/E-C translation of business letters is no longer in its infancy at home. Many students pay attention to the linguistic characteristics and courtesy, politeness and the like embodied in Chinese and English letters. Using comparison, they found a lot of similarities and differences, consequently some suggestions for translation appeared in their works or papers. However, one thing escapes from their research field, that is, information flow of discourse which may vary from Chinese to English and which may contribute a lot to the text's function. This thesis is trying to close this gap, singling out good-news letter kind, with a functional approach so as to make sure the translation text functions as closely as the source text does. Besides, some adjustments are suggested after the analysis based on Basil Hatim and Ian Mason's three dimensions of context and information structure, in particular, the information flow beyond the clause from J. R. Martin and David Rose.The thesis is comprised of five parts. Chapter 1 shows the brief introduction about the motivation, purpose and methodology of this research selected. Literature review constitutes chapter 2, dealing with translation studies at home. Next comes chapter 3, presenting major theories applied in the thesis, functionalist translation theories and "information flow" from Halliday, Mona Baker and J.R. Martin and Basil Hatim's, with the collaboration of Ian Mason, three dimensions of context. Closely following that, chapter 4 encompasses sub-categorizing business good-news letters, identifying functions of each kind of letters as well as discussing the reproduction of information flow during C-E and E-C translation. Functional equivalence and necessary adjustments constitute the author's positions and suggestions. Lastly, the thesis intends to make conclusions in chapter 5, integrating findings and suggestions in this research and recommendation for further study.