A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of The Securities Law Of The PRC

This thesis offers a comparative study on the two English versions of the Securities Law of the PRC (published respectively by Foreign Language Press and China Legal System Publishing House). The aim is to improve the quality of the English version of this law and to tentatively put forward some practical criteria for legal translation. The thesis is composed of five chapters.In Chapter One, the writer fist makes a brief introduction to the Securities Law of the PRC and its two English versions. Then the writer discusses the criteria of C-E legal translation, according to which the comparative study of the two English versions is to be conducted. On the basis of the analysis of the classification and purpose of C-E legal translation, the writer put forwards three criteria of translation, namely, 1) faithfulness to the meaning of the original text; 2) faithfulness to the style of the original text; and 3) natural representation in the target language.Chapter Two investigates the stylistic and linguistic features of legal English, the grasp of which is conducive to makingthe translated text faithful to the style of the original text and a natural reproduction in the target language.Chapter Three, Four and Five, which constitute the trunk of this thesis, conducted a detailed comparative study of the two English versions mentioned above. Chapter Three focuses on the study of whether the two versions are faithful to the original text in meaning. On the basis of the comparative study in this chapter, the author points out that the faithfulness to the original text in meaning can be improved by avoiding misrepresentation of technical terms, wrong expressions, mechanical word-for-word translation, mistranslation of figures, misunderstanding of the original text, loss of the original information, incompleteness in expressiveness, overtranslation and improper use of modalverbs.By applying the second criteria of C-E legal translation, namely, faithfulness to the style of the original text, to the comparative study of the two English versions in Chapter Four, the writer concludes that to exhibit the formalness of the original text, the use of formal words and some archaic words are preferred in C-E legal translation. In addition, the precision of the translated text can be improved by avoiding inconsistency in the translation of words or phrases, ambiguity in expression and abuse of passive voice.Chapter Five probes translation techniques to be employed in the translation of the Securities Law of the PRC for the purpose of achieving a natural representation in the target language. Chinese and English, which belong to two significantly different linguistic systems, have lots of difference in their lexical, syntactic structures and modes of expression. Therefore, to achieve a natural representation, it is necessary to make some adaptations in terms of the surface structure of original texts. By adding connectives in translation, the paratactic original text can be transformed into a hypotactic one which is more acceptable to target language readers. The proper adaptation of sentence pattern in translation may contribute to the compactness of the translated text. Chinese is a topic-prominent language while English is a subject prominent-one. Therefore, the proper conversion of Chinese topics into English subjects also improves the naturalness and smoothness of the translated text. The last section of this chapter elaborates on translation techniques which can be used to improve the brevity of the translated text.Finally, as the conclusion for the whole thesis, the writer repeats her three criteria of C-E legal translation and makes a general comment on the two English versions.