A Functionalist Approach To E-C Translation Of Business Contracts

A business contract is an agreement enforced by law. It concerns the economic activities between different countries, different enterprises, different organizations and individuals. With the development of international economy, business contracts play an increasingly essential role; hence, contract translation is showing more and more importance. So far, contract translation is in favor of stylistic approach. To be more specific, the study generally lingers on the micro-level of lexical expressions, syntactic structures and textual forms without a definite and penetrative translation theory as its guideline.Functionalist translation theory holds new perspectives on translational action. It persists that skopos is the prime principle to determine the overall translational actions and emphasizes the functions of the target text with its culture-specific background. Within the framework of functionalism, this paper attempts to explore approaches towards contract translation by employing the top-down methodology. Through integrating the macro-level of translation skopos and text functions with the micro-level of lexical expressions, syntactic structures and textual forms in the translation practice, this study makes an analysis of the rationality and applicability of the functionalist translation theory as the guideline for contract translation and explores the translation techniques of E-C translation of business contracts under this guideline.