A Study On Translation Of Legal Texts Under Newmark's Text Typology Theory

The increasing economic exchanges between China and foreign countries bring opportunities for foreigners to work in China.Lots of legal texts are involved in employment,but contracts or agreements signed between employer and employee concern with both parties' interests most.Therefore,the accurate and proper translation of such legal text is of great significance to both parties.Based on Confidentiality Agreement and its English translation as corpus and with Peter Newmark's text typology as a theory frame,this thesis aims to discuss the translation methods of legal text of such kind.Confidentiality Agreement is from Duan&Duan Law Firm Jinan Branch.It can be applied to agreement texts which concern with the protection of commercial information.Its main content includes the purpose of the agreement,the scope of confidential information and liability for breach of agreement etc.After studying Newmark's text typology theory and taking the characteristics of the corpus into consideration,the author of this thesis holds that the main function of legal text is vocative function followed by informative function,which means that translator should mainly adopt communicative translation.By dissecting the content and language features of Confidentiality Agreement,this thesis summarizes the lexical,syntactic and textual aspects of it.In terms of lexical level,the proprietary terms “Disclosing Party” and “Receiving Party” are used throughout the text;syntactic level,the use of long sentences and conditional sentences;textual level,formal style is applied to achieve the vocative function.In view of the linguistic features of the text,the author of this thesis puts forward several feasible translation methods such as liberal translation etc.under the guidance of Newmark's typology theory expecting to provide reference and guidance for further translation practice.