Translation Of International Business Contract From English Into Chinese

A contract is a sub-variety of legal document binding all parties involved in the transaction. With the economy rocketing high and globalization tendency strengthening, international business contract is playing an increasingly important role in the process which greatly helps promote the international economic transaction and stabilize the market order. However, reality witnesses many inaccurate, unprofessional and even awkward translated texts of international business contract which can cause legal disputes, incur economic losses, or even ruin the nation's reputation. Hereof, theories, principles or strategies guiding the translation of international business contract are needed to solve the problem, whereas the current contract translation study mainly focused on stylistic analysis, lacking of macro theoretical direction and systematic study.Functionalist translation theory decodes translational action from new perspectives. It holds that Skopos is the overriding principle that determines the overall translational actions and emphasizes the functions of the target text in its culture-specific background. In light of Skopos theory, this thesis attempts to employ a new approach of top-down strategy to the contract translation opposing to the traditional down-top method. The translation of international business contract means the realization of text functions by way of the micro analysis of stylistic features under the macro direction of the Skopos theory, on the basis of which this thesis makes an analysis of the feasibility and applicability of the Skopos theory as the guideline for contract translation and also explores techniques of the translation of international business contracts from English into Chinese under this guideline. The thesis aims to further stress on the business contract translation the solemnity, profession and legal effect in order to protect contractual economic transaction.