Aspects Of Translation Of International Commercial Contracts From A Register Perspective

With the introduction of modern linguistics into the realm of translation studies in the twentieth century, translation theories have thrived since the 1950s and 1960s. The systemic functional linguistics of M.A.K. Halliday is tremendously influential in the development of modern linguistics. It combines language function with language form and probes into the workings of language system in its actual context. Thus it has been extensively applied in the studies of many fields such as discourse analysis, pragmatics, stylistics, and translation studies. The register theory in the functional linguistics has also been widely applied into the study of translation, yet these studies are mainly focused on literature translation, while only a few of them are on business translation and legal translation, especially on the translation of commercial contracts.The traditional studies of contract translation are mainly included in stylistic translation, which investigate into the style of contract English through analysis of the lexical and syntactic features and probe into the translation approaches with contrast between the English and Chinese styles of contracts. Based on the register theory, this thesis tries to combine the contract language with its actual context and meaning, and attempts a deeper, more thorough and comprehensive analysis of the translation of commercial contracts in the hope of deepening the understanding of contract translation.Chapter One introduces the significance of the translation of international commercial contracts, overviews the current research status of contract translation, and sets out the objective of this thesis. Chapter Two introduces Halliday's systemic functional linguistics and elaborates on the content of register theory. Chapter Three is a detailed analysis based on the three variables of register, i.e. field, tenor, and mode of discourse. Through the analysis of the representation of the three variables in the text of contracts, this chapter probes into the various aspects of contract translation. Chapter Four is concerned with the Plain English Campaign in recent years and its impact on the English language of commercial contracts; it looks into the major changes in contract English, foresees the future evolvement, and proposes the coping strategies in face of the coexistence of old and new style contracts. Chapter Five is the conclusion of the whole thesis, and points out the limitations of this thesis and suggestions for further study.Nowadays with the rapid increase of China's involvement in international business activities, the demand for translation of commercial contracts between English and Chinese is rapidly expanding, and the quality of translation of the contracts is essential to the smooth implementation of the transactions. The author has had some experience of translating contracts, and feels it a daunting task if the translator lacks sufficient knowledge of contract language both in English and Chinese as well as the necessary business and legal knowledge. Therefore, it is hoped that with the endeavor of this thesis our understanding of contract translation can be further deepened, and that this analysis can be of some value in the future research of the translation of business English and legal English.