C-E Translation Errors And Strategies Of Corporate Profiles From A Perspective Of The Functionalism

With the development of the globalization, more and more companies take part in global competitions, in which a corporate profile plays an increasing important role in publicizing the company. Therefore, a large number of companies have their corporate profiles translated into English. Unfortunately, the English versions are by no means satisfactory due to improper handling of information or improper arrangement of the target text. An ineffective corporate profile hinders the communication between the company and its foreign customers. At present, few systematic studies have been carried out on corporate profile translations. The studies are mainly about identification of the translation problems or simply discussion of the problems from certain aspects. Therefore, it is necessary to carry out a further study in C-E translation of corporate profiles.Take the corporate profiles from 50 "Chinese Famous Brand" companies of Zhejiang province as examples, the author applies the functionalism to C-E translation of corporate profiles. The author first makes an overview of the development of the functionalism as well as its research and application in China, and gives a review of researches on publicity material translations in China. In the framework of the functionalism, translation is regarded as a purposeful activity, and the translation strategies should be determined by the intended function of the target text. Afterwards, the author analyzes the text function, the translation purpose and the translation brief of corporate profiles and finds out that the purpose of the corporate profiles is to provide the readers with the basic information about the company and to arouse interests of the potential customers in conducting business with the company. Then, the author uses the parallel texts to make a comparison between the Chinese corporate profiles and English corporate profiles in terms of language and culture. The author finds out the differences are as follows:1)Chinese corporate profiles include more flowery and tautological expressions while the English counterparts are plain and concise; 2)sentence structures of Chinese corporate profiles are of bamboo-shape structure whereas the English ones are of tree-shape structure; 3)Chinese corporate profiles tend to list glorious histories of the companies, while its English counterparts only list important awards and titles; 4)the style of Chinese corporate profiles is rather formal while that of the English ones are informal 5)Chinese corporate profiles provide comprehensive information while the English ones provide less but terse and important information.Based on Nord's classification of translation errors, the author conducts an analysis of the English versions of Chinese corporate profiles and draws the conclusion that the common translation errors fall into three categories, namely pragmatic translation errors, cultural translation errors and linguistic translation errors. Pragmatic translation errors involve improper handling of information including adding of unnecessary information or deleting of useful information; cultural translation errors result from negligence of cultural norms of the target language by translating literally the flowery expressions into target texts; linguistic translation errors mainly include misspelling, poor diction, wrong collocation and other grammatical mistakes. Of the three types, pragmatic translation errors and cultural translation errors are more serious than linguistic translation errors. These translation errors severely affect the communication of the effective information and impede the successful realization of the intended function of the target text. After further analysis, the author concludes that although there are many causes for these errors, the ultimate cause of these errors is the ignorance of the translation purpose and the target readers. Since in the functionalism the target readers are regarded as an important factor in translation and the translation strategies should be determined by the intended function of the target text, this theory can provide theoretical basis for the translation of corporate profiles.In view of the translation errors and the functionalism, the author suggests that the translation of the corporate profiles should be target-reader-oriented and that the translator have the rights to make some adjustments to target texts without losing the essence of the original writing. Finally, the author puts forward three adaptive strategies concerning the translation of corporate profiles:adaptation to linguistic conventions of the target language, adaptation to target readers'background knowledge and adaptation to target-culture conventions. Adaptation to linguistic conventions of the target language means the choice of words and the arrangement of the syntactical structures of the target texts should be in conformity with the target language; adaptation to target readers'background knowledge means to properly handle culture-specific expressions to make them easier for target readers to understand; adaptation to target-culture conventions means that the style as well as the content of the target texts should conform to the expectations of target readers.It is hoped that the present study will shed light on C-E translation of corporate profiles as well as on the teaching of the C-E translation of corporate profiles, and eventually be of help in promoting the development of Chinese companies.