Study On E-C Translation Of Bidding Documents From The Perspective Of Functionalist Approaches

Along with the globalization of economy and trade, flourishing international cooperation and exchanges have become increasingly close. Especially the developing countries from the Southeast Asian have built some large-scale hydropower projects by attracting foreign capital or by Asian Development Bank loan financing. For the construction or procurement of such projects, it is generally acknowledged that international competitive bidding should be adopted for sake of ensuring equity and validness. At the same time, the Chinese enterprises develop the advanced technical advantages, participating in international competitive bidding for key projects. Thus, International competitive bidding is gradually known by many people. According to the international practice, all documents related to international bidding activities, including bidding documents, contract, exchanged letters should be written in English, even in other language, must also enclose a copy of English version, in case of the occurrence of ambiguity, disputes and arbitration, the English version shall prevail. Thus, the accurate understanding and translation of bidding documents becomes the base for compective bidding activities, attention should be called on it.This thesis mainly discussed the application of intended text function, Skopo Theory, translation brief, the "coherence rule" and "fidelity rule" to the E-C translation of bidding documents within the framework of functionalism. This thesis selected abundant examples from bidding documents of international power projects to analyze English language features of biding documents, meanwhile, studied the E-C translation of bidding documents from the perspective of functionalist approaches and how the target text realizes the translational purpose and text functions. Based on analysis of functionalism application to bidding documents translation, the author proposed that intended text function is helpful for translators to adopt appropriate translation method, which should be consistent with text type. During the whole process of translating bidding documents, translators should use suitable translation strategies to meet the translational skopo and communicative intention, in order to fulfill translation task smoothly. Translators may understand each factor involved in translation brief and its translational skopo. Accordingly, Translators set down concrete translation method. Coherence rule and Fidelity rule should be integrated in the process of translating bidding documents to better serve translational skopo.According to the functional approaches, the author puts forward two principles of "Skopo-oriented" and "target reader-centered" as the guidance in translating bidding documents. Then, the author presents that translators can flexibly adopt translation skills like literal translation, annotation, sequence, reverse, division and reconstruction in consideration of syntactic structure and lexical features of bidding documents to better service the translational purpose of TT. This thesis also studies the translation errors existing in bidding documents, and proposes appropriate approaches to solving such errors in accordance with functionalist approaches.Functionalist approaches have inaugurated a new perspective to the study of bidding document translation and has directive significance for bidding document translation. Translators are supposed to keep translational skopo and intended functions of target text in mind, considering differences between Chinese language and English language and target text readers’different levels of knowledge background and cognition. Translators are required to produce translated texts that are acceptable to target text readers and capable of realizing translational skopo and intended functions with the adoption of appropriate translation strategies.