A Study Of Chinese Translation Of Business Contracts From The Perspective Of German Functionalist Translation Theories

With Chinese rapid evolution of economic globalization, the economic transaction and trade cooperation among divergent countries accelerate strikingly. China has speedily expanded economic and technological trading with the external world since its opening up. In business activities, the majority of transactions and commercial relationships have to be defined by contracts, which are stipulated to force obligations and defend rights and interests of contracting parties involved. As the global and inter-organizational relations included have to be defined and bound by law, contracts are of greater consequence in all sorts of commercial and trading activities.A multitude of academics and professors at home and abroad have carried out profuse explorations in this field from differentiating standpoints. It is beyond the shadow of doubt that in this sphere they have made extraordinary accomplishments and that the researches performed lay the solid foundation for the ensuing study. But deficiencies are still in existence. Firstly, some intellectuals perform researches merely basing on their own translation experience and a handful of instances which are scant of theoretical guidance; secondly, numerous scholars dig into business contract translation chiefly from the micro level and devote themselves to the studies on lexical and syntactic level but let slide translation strategies on the macro level. On top of that, during translation practice, countless business contracts have been translated problematically and even fallaciously, and thus, apart from classical stylistic theory, the enquiry into business contract translation and translation practice needs appropriate hypothetical instructions.On grounds of the above analysis, the author deems that it is requisite to perform a study on business contract translation from the perspective of German functionalist translation theory. The prime motivation of this paper is to analyze business contract translation from the functionalist approach and expound on the applicability of related theories to regulate contract translation. Abiding by the framework, the Skopos of translation and the function of text at the macro-level are integrated with the lexical, syntactic and textual aspects at the micro-level. The distinguishing feature of the thesis from other relative ones is that this thesis covers the features of business contracts at lexical, syntactic and textual levels respectively, and the macro-level and micro-level of business contract translation analysis are integrated. The core concepts and the development of German functionalist translation theory will be introduced at the first place, then the application of the theory to translation practice is conducted, which depicts the translation process and sums up the translation strategies to testify its applicability and feasibility.Through this research, the author discovers that functionalist translation theory is as well suitable for business contract translation, which makes certain guidelines for it. The author has become more and more experienced and qualified in the attributes of business contracts and the application of functionalist translation theory by composing this thesis. Moreover, some suggestions are proposed to stay away from those mechanical and inaccurate translations, and the reference is proffered for translators who are working on business contracts translation to help them undertake their obligations and fulfill the job extraordinarily.