A Comparative Study Of Two Chinese Versions Of GATT (1947 & 1994)

Legal language research has drawn more and more attention from a variety of people. Due to endeavors of many scholars, legal language researches have been improved a lot. However, as Pan Qingyun and Chenjiong point out, current scholarship on the topic of legal language research is still not so much as some areas of traditional research, and some problems still exist, for example, research on the system of legal language still needs improving, achievements in different branches of legal language research haven't maintained balance among themselves and so on. So it is still necessary for scholars to do more researches.This thesis is an attempt analysis on a legal document in order to explore some rules and experiential skills for legal document translation from English into Chinese.Since China gained entrance into WTO (World Trade Organization), the opening-up of China has stepped onto a new stage. All walks of life, including agriculture, textile industry, finance and so on are all influenced. As a member of WTO, China should not only abide by its regulations, but also should play an active role in international activities, including engaging herself in discussion of stipulations and legislation for international interactions so that she is active in international trades. However, the official languages of WTO are English, French and Spanish, which certainly throws obstacles in the way of comprehending international laws for those who only know Chinese. In this sense, translation which bridges the gap between China and the outside world is extraordinarily important. Only with the help of proper translation can more Chinese get to know international laws more easily, which will certainly boost the internationalization process of China's economy. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) is one of the three fundamental protocols for WTO. Though it keeps some unique features of its own, it also bears the common characteristics of legal document. This thesis takes two Chinese versions of GATT (1947 & 1994) as compared texts,by making reference to the characteristics of legal language, to generalize and prove some rules and some experiential skills in E-C legal document translation in the hope that it may facilitate further studies of legal document translation.This thesis consists mainly of three parts.The first part generally introduces some background knowledge of legal linguistics and GATT(1947&1994), so that the importance of proper translation can be realized.The second part introduces the criterion for legal document translation. Any comparison must be conducted on the basis of certain criterion. After a brief introduction of theories of several famous translators, Nida's functional equivalence theory is adopted to work as guideline for legal document translation. Meanwhile, considering the characteristics of legal language and the social functions of legal document, this thesis employs the following criterion for legal document translation: The target text should aim at equivalence both in terms of meaning and style at the same time. When a close and formal translation cannot achieve both kinds of equivalence, semantic equivalence should be maintained firstly, meanwhile, stylistic equivalence has to be kept as much as possible.The third part is a comparative study of two Chinese versions of GATT(1947&1994)in aspects of semantic equivalence and stylistic equivalence. Comparison is carried out on different levels of language structure. The last section presents conclusions of the comparison on different levels: phonological level or character level, lexical and semantic level, grammatical level, textual level, and situational-cultural contextual level. Also, shortcomings of this thesis are mentioned. The author hopes that this comparative analysis can be helpful for E-C legal document translation and further relevant researches.This thesis attempts to apply Nida's functional equivalence theory to a practical comparison of two Chinese versions of GATT so that the criterion for legal document translation may be concluded. The major difference between Nida's theory and criterion for legal document translation is that the latter emphasizes for legal document translation when a close and formal translation can't achieve semantic equivalence and stylistic equivalence at once, semantic equivalence should take precedence over the stylistic one while greatest possible endeavor should be made at stylistic equivalence. What's more, in the last section, this thesis concludes with some rules and experiential skills for legal document E-C translation on different levels of language structure which are drawn from this comparison.