A Study Of Mistranslations Between Chinese And English Accounting Terms From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

As it is known that with China entering into WTO, more and more business English translation researches appeared, like legal translation, contract translation, and business letter translation to name just a few. However, as a component of business English, accounting English translation did not receive enough attention. With the development of the introduction of foreign investment and China's companies going out of the country, businesses are more exposed to foreign accounting laws and regulations, so is the financial statement. Therefore, to introduce China's accounting laws and regulations to foreigners and vise versa have become a necessity to not only those involved in business but also academic researchers and students, thus, more translation practitioners and more effective translation skills are required in this field.The studies of accounting language translation in China are still in its preliminary phase. We have many problems in previous accounting translation works. These problems cause misunderstandings among information users and at the same time create problems in harmonization and standardization of accounting laws and regulations. According to this background, on the basis of the former researches the author combines Skopos Theory and Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis to analyze those problems and tries to put forward some suggestions.The first part of the essay is the introduction of the paper. It starts with the background of the topic, motivation & objective of the author and then the outline of the paper. As a special purpose English, accounting English is possessed with the characteristics of English and accounting language. Accounting English abounds with a great number of terms which form the features of accounting English systems, so it makes accounting English more formal and accurate. Accounting terms translation is often related to the quality of whole accounting documents. Therefore, accounting terms translation is a very important part in accounting translation study. However, the research on accounting translation in our country is comparatively late. It is still a new subject, thus the research on accounting terms translation is much fewer. Accounting terms translation is still lacking systematic theoretical guidance. The quality of translation is not satisfactory. With the existence of nonparallel and partial parallel English-Chinese accounting terms, the use of accounting terms for communication can lead to misunderstandings when the meaning of such terms is not fully appreciated by the recipient of the information.This paper draws on Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis from linguistics and on Skopos approaches from the relatively new discipline of translation studies. It argues that the language we use is linked to culture and thus affects our perception and thinking about accounting terms. The contributions of this paper are that it examines the translation of accounting terms (rather than probability expressions) by using a qualitative approach and employs translation theory to find problems existed and tries to make some suggestions.ChapterⅡis the literature review of accounting translation. It introduces general empirical researches in accounting translation both in the West and China. In addition, the author presents the theoretical perspective of the study about German Skopos Theory at both macro and micro levels and Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis of the relativity of language in different cultures.To begin with, researches about accounting translation have a relatively longer and more fruitful history in the West compared with that of China. On one hand, in the West it can date back to 1970s that experts did researches about the relationship between accounting language and linguistics. Some experts investigated semantic differential techniques to measure and compare the meanings of accounting concepts as perceived by different groups of users or preparers of accounting information, and other researchers investigated whether accounting rules can be considered independently of their expression through natural language. On the other hand, China's accounting translation research is a relatively new subject without systematic result, and the approaches adopted are mainly literal translation. The quality of accounting translation mainly depends on the translator's ability.Furthermore, this chapter focuses on the theoretical perspective of the study—German Skopos Theory and Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis. As to Skopos Theory, the paper introduces it at both macro and micro angles. As to the macro angle, the author introduces the development of the Skopos Theory and its main contributors including Katharina Reiss, Justa Holz-Manttari, Han J. Vermeer, and Christiane Nord. At the micro angle, the author introduces four core concepts about Skopos Theory:Skopos rule, Coherence rule, Fidelity rule and Loyalty rule. As to Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, it introduces the relationships of perception and culture to language relativity.ChapterⅢis the overview of accounting language including the definition of accounting, features of terms used in accounting language. It mainly comprises the definition of accounting both in English and Chinese versions and the features of terms used in accounting language. The features indicate the specialty of accounting language including employment of many semi-technical and technical terms, the abbreviations and the appearances of accounting terms in pairs. The particularity of accounting language required that accounting language translation should follow its own way that is different from other branches of business English.ChapterⅣis the introduction of methodology. In this paper the author adopts questionnaire and case study to research problems in current accounting translation. In this part, the author explores on the methodology used and provides illustrations on how an intercultural accounting translation questionnaire is structured, how the survey is carried out and how the participants'opinions on accounting translation are tested. The major methodological instrument for this survey is the accounting translation questionnaire. According to the result of the questionnaire, the author analyzed the problems existed at both macro and micro angles supported by the questionnaire.Chapter V is mainly about the results and discussions of the problems found. Analysis of the questionnaire helps the author define the status quo of current accounting translation and the problems existed. Case research shows the problems in the practice of accounting translation. The third part of this chapter suggests recommendation and strategies to solve the problems.From the quantitative analysis about the questionnaire, the author find out the problems at two levels—macro and micro respectively. To begin with, at the macro level, the questionnaire suggested three problems in accounting translation (a) failed to provide detailed explanation of related accounting laws and regulations; (b) neglect of culture and perception differences; (c) use of un-equivalent accounting terms. Furthermore, about the problems sensed at micro level, this part investigates the cases to find problem in two aspects:un-equivalent terminology translation with special notes needed and confusions between similar terms.Based on the researches in the preceding chapters, the last chapter concluded that translators of accounting laws and regulations should be fully aware of the prospective (target) text of translation analyzed in this paper and walk out of the comfort zone of literal translation. For accounting translation demands precision and accuracy, translators have to take numerical factors into consideration when making linguistic choices as even slightly language change can affect the content. Furthermore, the author also tries to provide some constructive suggestions on the enhancement of accounting translation quality. At the macro level of accounting translation and according to the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, the author suggests the following aspects:detailed explanation of related accounting laws and regulations; full consideration of the culture and perception differences; and avoid un-equivalent accounting term translation. On the other hand, about the problems found at the micro level, the author suggests three strategies—adequacy, top-down approach, and visibility. The author hopes these suggestions will generate more systematic researches on the issue of how to improve accounting translation approaches.Due to the limitation of the study scope, this exploratory study mainly concentrates on the analysis of accounting terms translation. Many efforts can be made to compare different versions of the translation of accounting laws and regulations. Researcher's subjectivity is another inevitable flaw of this study. The paper is inevitably influenced by the researcher's subjectivity and personal knowledge.