English-Chinese Translation Of Business Contracts From The Perspective Of German Functionalist Theory

Business contract is an agreement enforced by law, in which the contracting parties’obligations are imposed, their rights are conferred and their financial benefits are protected. The translation quality of business contract not only relates to the trade interests of the two parties, but also will affect their future economic cooperation and development. Therefore, the translation of business contracts is showing more and more importance. Up to now, many scholars have studied the translation of business contracts from different perspectives. However, these studies mainly attach importance to the micro-equivalence and pay little attention to the translation purpose and the text functions at macro level.German functionalist theory has cast a new light on translation practice. In this theory, translation is regarded as an intentional action. German functionalist theory breaks through the traditional translation theories by emphasizing the purpose or function of the target text. According to this theory, it is the purpose or function of the target text that determines the overall translational action. The translators are given more freedom in this theory. It encourages the translators to make full use of the original information and choose appropriate strategies to achieve the translation purpose and the text functions. In the light of German functionalist theory and by employing the top-down methodology, this thesis makes a study on the functionality of E-C translation of business contracts at both macro level and micro level. The thesis consists of six parts.The first part, the introduction, mainly introduces the background and the significance of the research. The structure of this thesis is also introduced in this part.Chapter One first gives an introduction to business contract including its definition, classification, text type and text function. Then the linguistic features of English business contracts are analyzed at lexical, syntactical and textual levels.Chapter Two introduces the theoretical basis---German functionalist theory. It first introduces the origin and the development of German functionalist theory. After this, the three rules of Skopos theory and Nord’s function plus loyalty principle are presented in detail.Chapter Three elaborates the functionality of E-C translation of business contracts at macro level. Three important factors affecting the E-C translation of business contracts are first discussed, namely, the initiator, the addressee and the translator. Then it applies the three rules of Skopos theory and Nord’s function plus loyalty principle to the E-C translation of business contracts and proves their applicability and rationality in business contract translation. Chapter Four discusses the functionality of E-C translation of business contracts at micro level. In the light of German functionalist theory, the E-C translation methods of business contracts is analyzed mainly at lexical, syntactical and textual levels based on the analysis of the linguistic features of business contracts in chapter one.The last part is the conclusion of the whole thesis:(1) During the E-C translation of business contracts, the translator should pay attention to the lexical, syntactic and textual features of contract languages. Yet, the translator should consider more about the translation Skopos, the intended receivers, the target social cultural norms and the functions of the target text. He also has to think over what strategies to choose according to different situations to achieve the intra-textual and inter-textual coherence in the rendition so as to fulfill the translation assignment;(2) The German functionalist theory is an effective framework for the E-C translation of business contracts both at macro level and micro level. By combining the translation purpose and the text functions at macro level with the linguistic features at micro level, the communicative purpose of E-C translation of business contracts can be achieved.