A Tentative Exploration Of Enterprise Translation: Theory And Practice

Enterprise Translation refers to translation activities involved in enterprise operation. It has made and will continuously make great contributions to the development of economy, science and technology in China. After the First National Seminar of Enterprise Translation held in Shanghai in October, 1992, more than 70 essays were selected and edited to form a special volume by Shanghai Journal of Translators for Science and Technology, at which a new term known as "Enterprise translationology" (hereafter "Enterprise Translation" for short) was invented by Liu Xian Gang, a famous enterprise translation expert.Enterprise translation is an indispensable component of enterprise operation in foreign business affairs. After China's entry into WTO, enterprises should participate and survive in the strong international competition against the background of economic globalization. Enterprise translation, as a bridge for message communication and information exchanges, has been switched from the single-function of language translation into the multi-function of direct participation in and coordination of enterprise operation.However, enterprise translation has all along been regarded as a simple language transfer without enough supportive theories. Furthermore, study and research papers on enterprise translation are few and far behind literary translation. Enterprise translators can only find general guidelines for enterprise translation from other branches of translation, such as Science and Technology Translation, Commerce and Trade Translation, Law Translation and Business Letter Translation. In spite of the fact that the nature of translation task differs from one enterprise to another, however, they share some common features: diversity of readers, effectiveness of translation for a given period of time, diversity of subject matters, specialization, intermingling of enterprise culture, etc. "All for the sake of readers" has become a motto for translation enterprise.General translation methods, rules and criteria for enterprise translation are summarized in the analysis of some typical documents based on the author's own experience, gained through her translation work in the enterprise where she works. The documents under discussion include public documents such as "Company Introduction", "Product Information", "Business Letter"; and technical documents such as "Material Safety Data Sheet", "Enterprise Regulations", and "Safety Policy". The close relationship between translation and subject matters has been given more and more attention. Fluent and consistent language transfer can only be achieved on the full understanding of subject matters both in the source language and the target language.The rapid development of economy, science and technology in China gives new contents and challenges to enterprise translation. Enterprise translators should upgrade their language competence and translation quality in order to live up to the expectation and requirement set by the new situation.