Application Of Domestication And Foreignization In English-Chinese Business Translation

Domestication and foreignization, a pair of concepts first put forward by Lawrence Venuti, an American scholar, in 1995, are used to describe two strategies employed in translation. Domestication is a TL- or TL-reader-centered strategy while foreignization is SL-centered strategy. The two strategies are opposite but complementary to each other.Armed with theories relevant to domestication and foreignization, this thesis investigates some phenomena in English-Chinese business translation. Compared with common English, business English is formal, clear, concise and precise. Another important feature of English language is the usage of special terms. The translated texts, therefore, should demonstrate such features. Business translation belongs to pragmatic translation, and has its own characteristics. Business translation should abide by the principles of faithfulness, smoothness and standardization, which depends on the purposes of business translation. "The first and most important purpose of business translation is to transfer information. More attention should be paid to the apprehension and acceptability of target readers and take into consideration how translation excises its due functions effectively and reach the purpose of the source text. The form and content of original text should serve the translated text and its communicative function." (Jia Wenbo: 2004: 38). Moreover, according to...