Business Contract Translation: From The Perspective Of Functionalist Skopos Theory

It has been10years past since China acceded to WTO. The volume of international trade in2010has amounted to2800billion dollars, increased by21%than that of last year. As the international trade grows rapidly, more and more international business contracts are signed. Business contract (BC) is an important legal document signed in international business to clarify the rights and obligations of business parties for the realization of certain business purposes. As international business is conducted between enterprises from different countries, proper translation of BC is a basic guarantee for successful businesses. Many scholars have done fruitful researches on BC translation from different perspectives, ranging from the linguistic features of BC to the rules and strategies of BC translation, etc. The study of BC translation needs a more broad perspective beside from this linguistic perspective. Business contract translation is a kind of human activities with specific purpose. In this thesis, the author studies BC translation in the framework of functionalist skopos theory systematically, including the skopos of BC translation, the translation brief, process, unit, principles, and strategies of BC translation, etc.Functionalist skopos theory is an approach to translation, which was originated in Germany in the late1970s (Vermeer,1978, pp.99-102). The concept of translation in functionalist skopos theory is basically functional."Translation is the production of a functional target text (TT) maintaining a relationship with a given source text (ST) that is specified according to the intended or demanded function of the TT (translation skopos)"(Nord2006). And the word "skopos", derived from Greek, is used as the terminology means the aim of translation. The author analyzes the skopos of BC translation:to define the obligations and rights of the contracting parties in the source contract and ensure the realization of certain business purpose. The author has also discussed the translation brief of BC translation, including the initiator (one of the contracting parties), the skopos, the TT addressee (the other contracting party) and other factors. With the demonstration of specific examples, the author analyzes BC translating process, and proposes skopos rule is the supreme principle in the whole process.Katharina Reiss classified text into3types according to their language function: informative, expressive and operative. Reiss proposed that different text types are correspondent with different translation strategies. As BC belongs to informative text, so target contract should transmit referential content, such as the quality, specification of the goods, the price terms, ways of payment, methods of resolving disputes and etc as specified in the source contract. This thesis also has applied Nord’s vertical translation unit to analyze the functional translation unit of BC. Nord claims that genre convention is the result of normalization of communication practices. Translators have to comply with the conventions of target culture which is the presupposition of target reader. With this theoretical basis, the translator needs to abide the format and stylistic feature of business contract of target culture in target contract production. At last, with the illustration of some examples, the author demonstrates how to apply skopos rule, fidelity&coherence rule, loyalty rule to BC translation.This thesis broadens the perspective of the research on BC translation in the framework of functionalist skopos theory. BC translation is a considered as purposeful act. Skopos rule is the supreme rule in BC translation. All the strategies carried out in translation should be consistent with the skopos of BC translation. Only in this way, can the communicative effect of BC translation be realized with the translation quality improved.