An Analysis And Strategies Of The English Version Of Tourism Law Of The People’s Republic Of China On Register Theory

As more and more tourists both abroad and home visit China, China has introduced its first Tourism Law of People’s Republic of China in2013, thus the English version of TLPRC has been of greater importance. Legal language is a special one which has unique register features. Thus, this thesis attempts to analyze the problems and propose strategies in the English version, also attempts to apply the register theory to legal English translation by conducting an analysis of the English version of TLPRC, aiming to clarify its guidance to legal English translation by using some examples.Based on the Systemic Functional Linguistics, this thesis probes into the lexical (legal terms, words of foreign origins, archaism and common words with uncommon meanings) and syntactic (declarative sentences, parallel structure, nominalization and modal verbs) features of legal English, then applies register theory to translation practice to analyze the problems existing in the English version of TLPRC from field, tenor and mode and also proposes corresponding strategies, aiming to achieve register equivalence better.Due to the lack of research into the English version of TLPRC, the author, with the help of English-Chinese and Chinese-English Dictionary of Law, A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage and Merriam-Webster s Dictionary of Law, concludes three principles instructing the legal English translation:First, the field equivalence in legal translation is mainly realized by lexical choice which must follow these three principles:formalness, precision and conciseness; Second, tenor equivalence is mainly achieved by appropriate choice of modal verbs; Third, mode equivalence is mainly realized by cohesion and nominalization. In short, the translation should replicate the register features of the source text to achieve the register equivalence.