A Report On The Translation Of Contract Law In Hong Kong (Chapter One)

The source text of the translation practice report is the first chapter of the book Contract Law in Hong Kong,which mainly introduces the contract law in Hong Kong and its specific features.As we know,Hong Kong has its own legal system which is different from the mainland.So this translation practice can help people from the mainland know something about the contract law in Hong Kong.The theoretical basis of the translation practice report is Adaptation Theory which was put forward by Jef.Verschueren.Adaptation Theory points out that language use is a continuous process of making choices by adapting to communicative contexts.The purpose of adaptation is to satisfy communicative needs.Translation,as a cross-cultural activity,needs to adapt to different linguistic contexts so as to faithfully convey message among different languages.Adaptation Theory can be showed from four aspects: contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,dynamics of adaptability and salience of the adaptation processes.Since the legal text has its own discourse features and linguistic characteristics,legal translation needs to adapt to the legal context.Two aspects of the Adaptation Theory,namely contextual correlates of adaptability and structural objects of adaptability,guided my translation and helped me adopt several translation techniques,including making semantic choices,conversion,division,repetition and restructuring sentence structures so as to achieve the equivalent effects of the source text.Adaptation Theory,serving as the theoretical guidance,plays a crucial role in this translation practice.The application of the Adaptation Theory in the legal text is expected to provide a new perspective for the research of legal translation.