| Great changes have taken place since the implement of opening up and reform policy in China, especially in the economic field. With the high-speeding development of Chinese economy and the tendency of globalization, a variety of contracts and agreements between China and foreign countries are needed so as to ensure the regular development of socialism modernization construction. Moreover, English is the most popular language in the world. As a result, contractual translation from Chinese to English or from English to Chinese is badly necessary. An English version of a contract in China when dealing business or political issues with foreigners is indispensible. As well, contract belongs to the "frozen style", which requires correct and precise expression. Each word and phrase, even the sentence patterns must be cautiously chosen so as to avoid misunderstandings and disputes. A slight deviation of the meaning or expressing would cause legal disputes. Considering the importance of contractual translation, great attention should be paid to the source of all applied practical contracts and agreements—Contract Law of the People's Republic of China (CLPRC). It is a rule and criteria for signing and performing all contracts and agreements in all social activities in China. Therefore, its English version should be equally highlighted.Nida's functional equivalence originated from his long-time continuous research. Nida launched his new concept on translation and dynamic equivalence since 1960s and 1970s. After modifying and improving, he changed "dynamic equivalence" into "functional equivalence" in the 1980s. He emphasized that "not only the equivalent content of message, but, in so far as possible equivalent of the form". Thus, "functional equivalence" is more reasonable and persuasive than "dynamic equivalence". Attention should also be paid to the responses of the source language readers and the target language readers. It is also what the English version of a contract has to satisfy. That is to say, after reading the Chinese and English versions of a contract, both Chinese and English readers should receive the same information and response equally. Therefore, it is a better choice to analyze the English version of CLPRC by way of Nida's functional equivalence.As the thesis processes, the author will go through five chapters to discuss and analyze CLPRC and how the functional equivalence theory guides for the translation of CLPRC.The first chapter is the introduction.A minute introduction to laws is in Chapter Two. Firstly the origination of laws in western world and the current situations of China's law are briefly discussed. Then it comes to introducing the CLPRC, including the background of its generation, its characteristics and significances. What's more, two parts are additionally included in chapter one, the first one is an introduction to the contents of the contracts and the analysis on linguistic characteristics of contract, the latter of which would mainly be in two aspects:the lexicon and syntax.Chapter Three is an introduction to the functional equivalence theory. Nida's life experiences and his researches would be briefly mentioned. Then the origin, progress and the current research results on it both at home and abroad would be indispensible. Meanwhile, some other theories would be mentioned to make a comparison. Additionally, the relationship between Nida's equivalence theory and CLPRC will be analyzed briefly.Chapter Four plays a leading role in the thesis. The relationship between CLPRC and equivalence theory is explained. The problems and mistakes appearing in CLPRC would be analyzed with equivalence theory. Moreover, the author analyzes the deficiency of equivalence in detail.The last chapter serves as the conclusion of the thesis. It summarizes the previous chapters, concluding that equivalence theory is a suitable translation theory for directing the translation of business contracts. Last but not the least, the limitations and suggestions of this thesis are mentioned. |
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