On C-E Translation Of Corporate Profiles From The Perspective Of Functionalist Approach

As the economy gets increasingly globalized,never before have countries been as inter-connected as they are today.As part of their efforts to attract foreign clients and investors,most enterprises in China have set up English web-sites to introduce their main business and other basic information.Thus,an excellent corporate profile(CP for short)will add to company's image,as it could gain business and improve company's economic benefits.However,the current CP translation is mainly conducted under the guidance of equivalence theory,which stresses corresponding on both content and form.It leads to the fact that the translated text is full of word-for-word translation,linguistic errors and Chinglish expressions.Thus,the translation of CP is still far from satisfaction,for most translated texts fail to achieve the desired effect as they neglect different language styles,cultural backgrounds,thinking modes and aesthetics standards between Chinese and English.Therefore,the improvement of CP translation was urgently needed.On this very note,functionalist approach are emerged and provide us with a new perspective and theoretical basis for the translation.Especially,the Skopostheorie,with the core concept of---“the end justifies means”,is a breakthrough to traditional translation theory.The Skopostheorie emphasizes the intended purpose of the targeted text.Under the guidance of the Skopostheorie,translators are free to make full use of information and adopt whatever translation strategies they take as appropriate to achieve the skopos(purpose)of the text.That is to say,they are entitled to modify or manipulate the source text as long as the essence of it is fully expressed and conveyed.In all,the Skoposthoerie provides a scientific explanation and theoretical foundation for some unconventional translation strategies.The research purpose of the thesis is to spot the problems existing in the samples collected from company websites and justify the feasibility of functionalist approach in CP translation.This thesis adopts the research methods of comparative analysis and case study and attempts to answer the following questions:(1)what are the differences between Chinese and foreign CP.(2)what are the problems in both Chinese version and English version of the Chinese CP collected from enterprise websites?(3)What kind of countermeasures can be employed in CP translation in light of functionalist approach? Additionally,the author hopes that this thesis will provide us a new insight for CE translation practice in other fields as well.This thesis is composed of six chapters.The first chapter is an introduction of the thesis.It includes research background,the purpose and significance of this research,data collection,research methodology and the structure of this thesis.In the second chapter,the author makes a literature review of functionalist approach.In chapter 3,there will be detailed comparisons between Chinese and foreign CP.And then the problems in current CP translation will be pointed out in Chapter 4.In Chapter 5,the author will put forward some countermeasures against problems in CP translation under the guidance of functionalist approach.The Chapter 6 is a conclusion of the thesis,generalizing major findings,pointing out limitations of the thesis and put forward suggestions for further study.