A Comparative Study Of Two English Versions Of The Contract Law Of The P.R.C

Translation, a rather practicaI biIingual activity for cross-cuIturalcommunication, cannot do without the guidance of an adequate theory. Amongthe many theories that have emerged bOth in the Eastern and W6stern worfd,Eugene Nida's theory of functionaI equivaIence is one of the most wideIyaccept6d. Nida hoIds that "Translating consists in reproducing in the receptorlanguage the closest natural equivaIent Of the source-language message, firstin terms of meaning and secondIy in terms of styIe." In specffic appIication ofhis theory, Nida proposes some principles for producing funCtionalequivaIence.Endowed with the special social funCtion to impose obIigations and conf6rrights, legal Chinese has its unique styIistic and linguistic features as isdistinguished from other varieties of language. ln light of Nida's "funCtionaIequivalence", this thesis mak6s a comparative study Of corresponding eXtraCtsfrom twO English versions Of The COntffiCt Law of the PR.C. (published byChina Legal System PubIishing House and Foreign Languages PressrespeCtively). The aim is to find praCtical approaches Which wilI lead to theclosest natural equivaIence in the tafget Ianguage in C-E legal translation,meanwhiIe, some merits as well as demerits of the tWo English versions interms of translation are investigated.This thesis consists of fOur chapters. The first gives a brief account ofNida's theory of functional equivalence and its appIication in legal transIation.The second chapter introduces The Contf8ct Law of the PRC., its origins andthe English versions, moreover, it investigates on the basis of this contract 1awthe stylistic and linguistic features of IegaI language. Chapt6r Three and Four,which constitute the majority of this thesis, conduct a detai1ed comparisonbetween the above-mentioned EngIish versions. Chapter Three focuses onundertranslation, overtransIation and mistransIation 'in the English versions toshow whether the message in the source language is reproduced in thereceptor language in terms of meaning. lt also probes the use of words notfOrmaI enough for legaI documents. The first three sections of Chapter FourdwelI on such techniques as conversion and addition adopted in the EngIishverSions to see whether the transIated teXt is smooth, naturaI and concise inthe interest of funCtionaI equivaIence. The fourth seCtion of this chapter,combined with the usage of some EngIish modal verbs, inveStigates four typesof Iegal provisions and their transIation. FinalIy, a conclusion is drawn that theclosest functionaI equivalence can be achieved under the guidance of a propertheory integrated with transIation skilIs and an adequate knowIedge of thediscipline concerned.