Application Of Functional Equivalence To E-C Translation Of Commercial Contract

With the advance of economic globalization and acceleration of reform and opening-up policy, economic and trade cooperation between China and foreign countries becomes much closer. Under such an increasingly flourishing international trade environment, people’s demand for commercial contract translation also increases. In recent years, contract translation has developed into a special translation category. Commercial contracts are legally binding agreements signed between two or multiple parties which are characterized by strict wording, complex syntax and rigorous logic. As the basis of foreign trade activities, accurate commercial contract translation helps to promote the smooth economic exchanges. Thus, it is of great importance to conduct studies on commercial contract translation.Commercial contract text has its own features. In vocabulary, archaic words, modal verbs and technical terms are adopted to ensure precise and rigorous wording; with regard to sentence construction, declarative sentence, passive sentence, long and complicated sentences are frequently used to realize the target of proper presentation and strict logical construction. This thesis is a translation practice report on a transnational house property agreement, C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement. In the translation process, the author found Eugene Nida’s equivalence-based linguistic translation theory which emphasizes communicative purpose and reader response can be an effective guide for her translation of commercial contract and help her deal with the non-equivalence of the text information. The author thus selects Nida’s functional equivalence theory as the theoretical guidance for the C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement s translation.Taking C.A.R. Residential Purchase Agreement as an example, this thesis explores the application of functional equivalence to commercial contract translation. Under the guidance of the functional equivalence theory, the author attempts to probe into the text and style features of Chinese and English contract from the aspects of morphology and syntax and discuss commercial contract translation strategies. Real estate agreement stipulates the rights and obligations of the buyer and the seller. It is a legal document and it also involves some financial and foreign exchange terminologies, which increase the difficulty of translation to some degree. As for the difficult points in translation such as the translation of technical terms and complicated sentence, the author analyzed the agreement carefully and employed some translation strategies and skills such as literal translation, addition, omission and conversion and overcame these difficulties smoothly. By summarizing the difficulties in translation of the contract and specific skills and strategies used to deal with these difficulties, the author hopes this thesis can be of some references for future commercial contract translation.