On C-E Translation Errors Of Chinese Corporate Profiles On The Websites And The Countermeasures

With the development of economic globalization and the popularization of Internet, more and more Chinese enterprises get involved into the international competitions and pay much attention to the English translation of their corporate profiles on the websites. The English corporate profile on the corporate website has become an effective way to foster a good corporate image, promote business at home and abroad and thus enhance economic performance. However, there are various translation errors and problems in the translation caused by the improper handling of information and arrangement of text. At present, the majority of the English translation of Chinese corporate profiles on the websites still remains the simple corresponding to the literal level, without fully considering the target audience’s cultural background and their mode of thinking. These versions fail to achieve the desired results, thus hindering the effective communication and information exchange between the corporate and its foreign customers and damaging the corporate image.At present, few researches on the corporate profile translations have been done. These studies are mainly about the comparison between Chinese and English corporate profiles from the perspectives of culture, discourse or language, or discussion about the problems without solutions, which can not provide the hands-on guidance to the translators in this field. So it is necessary to have a deeper study. In this thesis, the author makes a comparison between Chinese and English corporate profiles, analyzes the common errors in the current corporate profiles translations, and puts forward some translation strategies. It is hoped that the present study will provide some guidance for the C-E translation of the corporate profile as well as its teaching, and thus be helpful for not only the development of Chinese enterprises, but also for the standardization of the practical-text translation.The thesis is divided into five chapters. The first chapter gives a simple introduction to the research background, the significance of the study and the thesis structure. Chapter Two first gives a brief description of the content and the purpose of corporate profiles, then focuses on a comparative analysis of Chinese and English corporate profiles from the perspectives of language and culture, and gives an account for the importance of corporate profiles. Chapter Three makes an analysis of the common C-E translation errors of corporate profiles and their reasons. The author first makes an analysis of the common translation errors of the Chinese corporate profiles on websites and classifies them into three categories, namely linguistic translation errors, pragmatic translation errors and cultural translation errors, and then gives a simple analysis on the reasons. Chapter Four proposes countermeasures for these errors, in which the author, using a large number of translation cases, puts forward some translation strategies such as addition, deletion, restructuring and other methods which can be used to make the translation more acceptable for the target readers. Moreover, based on the present situation of the C-E translation of corporate profiles and the personal practice, the author gives some suggestions to the translators and the translation management. Chapter Five, the concluding part, makes a summary of the thesis and puts forwards some suggestions for future research.