Wilss' Translation Theory And Business Translation

Though business English gets its appropriate treatment as an academic pursuit worldwide, business English translation does not. There are some reasons to explain this phenomenon. First, in some sense, business English is promoted and used as media between businessmen of different mother tongues, and most businessmen know business English. This fact seems to put business translation useless. Secondly, English is not only the dominant language of business, but also the dominant language of academia. For anglophone scholars, translation in most cases is not necessary.Globalization and recent development in the international politics turn the tide. First, international business was mainly international trade before, but now other forms of international business become more and more important, such as multinational production, global marketing and retailing, etc. In this practice, localization is one of the most strategic maneuvers for any multinational corporation to succeed in the target country. Localization also means using of local language, then translation. Secondly, the call for equality in international relation also challenges the hegemony of English and use of national languages has become a symbol of national sovereignty and pride. Translation is no longer in the peripheral. So is the business translation.There are yet other practical reasons. First, not all businessmen, at least for now and in the foreseeable future, are competent in English. Or even worse, most businessmen are not competent enough by now to directly communicate in English with their counterparts of other parts of the world. As this is the usual case, business translation has to come in to rescue. Secondly, non-businessmen, such as decision-makers of government or internal business organizations, need translated business documents to review. Globalization may mean many non-English speakers involved in international business. Thirdly, legal issues, especially business litigation has to be processed in the national language of the party involved. Many countries require use of their national languages or official languages to process legal suits and in reality many witnesses and evidences have to be obtained in languages other than English.But business translation has for a long time remained only a practical pursuit and ignored by academia. Only recent it has attracted the attention of the academic field. The input from academic endeavor will surely give an impetus to the theoretical development of business English translation. This dissertation is an attempt to use translation theory to analyze business translation practice by selecting from among many frameworks of translation theory the one most suitable to business translation, Wilss' Science of Translation theory, in an attempt to attract more attention to thetheoretical study of business translation.This dissertation consists of five parts including the introduction and the conclusion.The introduction states the key reasons and aims of this dissertation and outlines this academic effort.The first chapter briefs the definition of translation and introduces certain modern translation theories especially the science of translation school. Compared with the other schools of modern translation theories, I give reasons why it is better than the other schools to be applied to business translation. Chomsky, Nida and Wilss have made fundamental contribution to the development of the science of translation school. Chomsky's surface- and deep-structure, Nida's functional equivalence and dynamic equivalence, all influence on Wilss' Science of Translation. Wilss' theory includes Textlinguistics Equivalence and two models, which the author tries to adopt business translation research in this paper.Chapter Two gives characteristics of business translation and the theoretical application, and the special consideration of business translation. The former includes accuracy and efficiency in business translation, comprehension of intention and equivalence of response. And the latte...