The Applicability Of The Interpretive Theory In Translation Of Business Contracts

After China's access into WTO, China has acquired more opportunities in international trade and business. International business contracts have thus been more frequently used and high-quality contractual translations are in increasing need. However, contractual translation poses a great challenge for translators in that contract, as a kind of legal instrument, has extinct features in its language, structure and writing style, especially English contracts and Chinese contracts differ much in language and structure. A translator must accurately and sufficiently convert the sense of the source contract to the target contract and, at the same time, naturally express the sense in target language so as to embody the target contract's features. However, this aim is never easy to achieve. Therefore, it is necessary to find a translation theory to direct contractual translation practice.The interpretive theory of translation is the right choice. According to this theory, translation must achieve sense equivalence. The sense equivalence referred here is not on language level, but on text level. To reach this aim, the theory has put forward a three-step translation procedure: 1. comprehension; 2. deverbalization; 3. expression. In addition to its sense equivalence criterion, the interpretive theory holds that the translation should, if possible, achieve the similarities in linguistic features and writing style between the original and the translation. Sense equivalence should always come in the first, and similarities on manners of expression second. Through a comparison between contractual translation requirements and the translation criteria held by the interpretive theory, we can easily find out that the interpretive theory is just the one we need in directing contractual translation practice.This thesis intends to study the applicability of the interpretive theory of translation in directing contractual translation practice and prove that the interpretive theory can successfully and satisfactorily direct the practice of international business contracts translation in hope that the interpretive theory of translation will be widely employed by future translators in their contractual translation practice.The thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter One is a general introduction to the interpretive theory of translation, including the development of the theory, the key concepts of the theory, the three-step translation procedure and the criteria advocated by the theory. The intention is to analyze the features and advantages of the theory. Chapter Two discusses the knowledge in relation to contract, including the definition of contract, the categories of international business contracts, and the descriptions of the linguistic features, language structure and writing style. This chapter paved the way for the discussion of the specific criteria for contractual translation in chapter three. The third chapter discusses the specific criteria for contractual translation: faithfulness and accuracy; expressiveness and smoothness. These specific criteria are based on the general criteria put forward by the interpretive theory and the analysis of the extinct features of contract as well as the practical need for contractual translation. Chapter Four discusses, in theory, the applicability of the interpretive theory intranslation of contractual translation. Chapter Five takes the interpretive theory into practice to validate its practical applicability in directing contractual translation. The thesis makes detailed analyses of the whole translation process by employing the interpretive theory to handle practical problems, with two goals to achieve: 1. to reach sense equivalence; 2. to equip the translation with features a contract should have and keep in the translation the features of the original contract in language, structure and writing style if possible. Chapter Six is the conclusion part, through a detailed and thorough study on the features of the interpretive theory and the specific requirements of contractual translation, as well as a comprehensive practical validation, the thesis naturally arrives at a conclusion: the interpretive theory is applicable to contractual translation.