The Sociosemiotic Approach To Translation Of English Contracts

Owing to the deepening of economic globalization and imminent development of economy in China, intercultural communication and international commercial trade have become more and more common, which needs contracts to guarantee the two parties' economic interests. Nevertheless, Chinese is different from English, so it is inevitable that two parties to a contract should enter into two versions of an international trade contract. Based on this status quo, there is no doubt that an accurate and effective translation of one contract is indeed necessary to avoid misunderstanding and the loss of both economic interests of the two parties.This thesis elaborates the sociosemiotic approach to translation of English contracts. Since the study of sociosemiotic approach to translation has a long history, this thesis first makes a systematic review of the study on it both at home and abroad. Then this thesis gives a brief analysis of semiotics and sociosemiotics, which are the theoretical bases of sociosemiotic approach to translation. According to Morris' s research on semiotics, the sign meanings can be divided into three types. They are designative meaning, linguistic meaning and pragmatic meaning. Accordingly, as a sign, the languages in English contracts also include these three meanings. Next, this thesis introduces the criterion of sociosemiotic approach to translation that is now commonly accepted and employed, that is, “correspondence in meaning and similarity in function”. It is proposed by Professor Chen Hongwei. Here, the meaning and function respectively mean Morris' s trichotomy of meaning and Newmark's classification of language function. Then by using examples, this thesis elaborates the meanings and functions that language signs in English contracts contain. At the same time, based on the criterion of sociosemiotic approach to translation, this thesis also presents the reproduction of the meanings and functions of language signs in translation of English contracts. This thesis aims at applying sociosemiotic approach to translation of English contracts and making the translation more faithful and appropriate.