On The Translation Of International Trade Contracts: From The Perspective Of Cultural Differences

The second half of twenty century witnesses the global economization and rapiddevelopment of international trade. In the process of interaction and communication takingplace in international trade, it is an essential step for the parties concerned to enter intocontract. Indeed, a legitimate contract not only affects the smoothness and success of thecooperation, but also manifests the economic interests of both parties. It is a widely receivedrecognition that accurate and appropriate translation plays a crucial role in realizing thefunction of international trade contract and in avoiding possible disputes between partiesconcerned.Many scholars at home have made contribution to and accomplishment in the studies oftranslation of international trade contract from different aspects. However, there are rarestudies on the translation of international trade contract from the perspective of culturaldifferences, which underlies the frequent communication between different countries andexerts influences to the translation of international trade contract. Therefore, apart fromstudying translation of international trade contract from forensic linguistics or generaltranslation theories, it is necessary for scholars and translators to study translation ofinternational trade contract from the perspective of Chinese and Western cultural differences.This paper tries to deepen the studies of contract translation practice and to provide someuseful references or guidelines to legal practitioners and translators by elaborating thecultural connotation and translation strategies of international trade contract.Based on the four aspects of Chinese and Western cultural differences, that is, moral,values, religious belief and mode of thinking, this paper expounds the cultural connotation ofinternational trade contract at the lexical, syntactic and textual levels and ventures to putforward the translation strategies.This paper is divided into seven parts:The first part introduces the Sino-western cultural differences summarized bypredecessors and translation principles for international trade contract, points out the influence of cultural differences on international trade contract translation, and presents thepurpose and significance of this paper.The second part is literature review, which discusses the present studies of internationaltrade contract translation, foreignization and domestication and cultural default andtranslation compensation theories both at home and abroad and displays the studies ofeconomical English translation with cultural differences influences.The third part elaborates Sino-western cultural differences. The reasons of culturaldifferences formation are showed in this part. Then the detailed embodiment of Sino-westerncultural differences is discussed from the following four aspects: moral, values, religiousbelief and mode of thinking.The fourth part gives description to the discourse structure and linguistic characteristicsof international trade contract. The discourse structure is discussed from the angles of formatand main articles and the linguistic characteristics are showed at the lexical, syntactic andtextual levels.The fifth part displays the cultural connotation expressed in international trade contractfrom the four concrete aspects (moral, values, religious belief and mode of thinking), whichmake the cultural differences.The sixth part puts forward the translation strategies of international trade contract fromthe perspective of cultural differences. In light of the cultural connotation discussed in lastpart, the translation strategies at lexical, syntactic and textual levels are provided.The last part is conclusion, which makes a general summarization of this paper,including the main findings, the meaning as well as limitations of this study.