Translating Methods For Long Sentences In English Business Contracts

A business contract is an agreement which is formatted in accordance with laws and it has been notarized to determine rights and obligations of parties in business cooperation.However,it is very difficult for people to understand English business contracts accurately and properly due to their rigor and complexity.The use of long sentences is a common phenomenon in English.With the continuous deepening of language and cultural exchanges,the higher appearance frequency of business English long sentences in translation practice and their difference from Chinese long sentences in grammatical structure make it rather difficult to translate.As a British translation theorist,Peter Newmark put forward the widely-known theory called as text typology in which texts are divided into three categories,which are expressive texts,informative texts and vocative texts.Newmark also proposed semantic translation and communicative translation.He suggested that semantic translation strategies should be properly used for dealing with an expressive text because the text of English business contracts belongs to expressive texts.In this paper,the author first analyzes the lexical and grammatical features of English business contracts,and after summarizing his experiences of Chinese translation of an escrow agreement from theoretical and practical standpoints,proposes respective translating methods including change of the voices,sequence,hysteron-proteron,division and comprehension according to semantic translation,so as to make the translated version clear,smooth,natural and consistent with Chinese expressions.