A Report On C-E Translation Of Contracts In Heinz (China) Project

China's decades of reform and opening-up have witnessed increasingly busy business interaction between China and other countries around the world,and conclusion of numerous business contracts by and between Chinese and overseas enterprises on a daily basis,which contribute to the growing emphasis on translation of business contracts.This report takes translation practice of contracts in Heinz(China)Project from Chinese to English as a case study in an attempt to probe into issues related to business contract translation from Chinese to English.Guided by the functional equivalence theory,this report analyzes two major difficulties in translating contracts and agreements of Heinz(China)Project,that is,technical terms and phrases and “?” expressions,and sums up relevant translation techniques.The report starts with describing the Project and presenting details regarding the Project translation,followed by a case analysis by identifying the two major difficulties,analyzing reasons for the difficulties and putting forward translation techniques employed under the theoretical guidance.After that,the report,based on this translation practice,explores concrete suggestions for business contract translation from Chinese to English.In the case study,the author identifies the difficulties,analyzes reasons for such difficulties,including the existence of lexical false friends in Chinese and English,formal style requirements for legal instruments and disparity between hypotactic English and paratactic Chinese,and,based on several cases,summarizes techniques of literal translation,liberal translation and conversion to deal with technical terms and phrases,and translation skills of translating “?” expressions as adverbial clauses,prepositional phrases and noun phrases so as to provide a translation of “the closest natural equivalent to the source language”.By doing so,the author hopes it can offer a useful reference to business contract translation from Chinese to English to cope with such instruments for better translation.