A Study Of The Stylistic Features And E-C Translation Of Contracts

With the development of economic globalization and China's opening to the outside world, contract translation is showing more and more importance. Contract belongs to a type of legal document, while traditional legal translation theory over-emphasizes strict literal translation. Nowadays, people come to realize that the creativity of legal translators assumes an important role in contract translation and directly influences the quality of translation. Nevertheless, it is not yet agreed upon how far the legal translator can stretch their limited freedom. On the other hand, it is widely acknowledged that style is a very important element to be considered in contract translation and many researches have been carried out in this respect, whereas most studies remain traditional, characterized by general and impressionistic comments or by intuitive analysis, which bypass the realities of the legal text.Through the analysis of some samples, this thesis generalizes the stylistic characteristics of English contracts at lexical, syntactic and textual levels. Then it further discusses the E-C translation techniques of contracts.At lexical level, English contracts mainly demonstrate the following characteristics: the frequent use of archaic words, formal words, and synonyms. Their characteristics at syntactic level are more complex. This thesis analyses them in terms of conditional adverbial clauses, long sentences, and declarative sentences. At textual level, it is found mat simple present tense and lexical reiteration are used throughout a contract.The translation standards of contracts are discussed by analyzing a series of famous translation theories. A good rendition of contracts at first should be faithful, not only to the original text's content, but also to the style. Secondly, it should be smooth and conform to the target language's expressing habits. What's more, translators should adopt literal translation as the main translation strategy. As to the specific E-C translation strategies of contracts, this thesis studies at lexical, syntactic and textual levels on the basis of their stylistic characteristics. At lexical level, the translation of archaic words, shall, and synonyms is discussed. At syntactic level, this thesis analyses the translation techniques of conditional clauses and long sentences. With respect to textual level, this thesis emphasizes that the translators should keep the consistency of the expressions.In general, the translators should keep in mind that in their E-C translation of contracts they should be faithful to the content as well as to the style. What's more, they should make their rendition smooth and idiomatic and let Chinese readers have a similar response as that of the source language readers.