Research On Chinese-english Legal Translation From The Perspective Of Functionalist Translation Theory

With the rapid development of the economy,China's external exchanges are increasing.China has conducted active exchanges with other countries in the political,economic,cultural and other fields to learn from each other and seek common development.In this process,the laws and regulations with binding effect have played an important role,thus the legal exchanges have become more frequent.We not only need to learn from foreign legislative experience,but also need to let foreign government agencies,organizations and individuals have a comprehensive understanding of China's legal construction.The importance of legal translation is indispensable.Criminal law of the People's Republic of China(hereinafter referred to as the“criminal law”)is a criminal law that regulates and restricts the behavior of citizens.Its legislative purpose is to punish crimes and protect the people.Although the English version of the criminal law has no legal effect,its quality will bring the direct influence to non-Chinese readers.In addition to academic research,most users of the English version of the criminal law are foreigners who live,study and work in China.The quality of the English version will directly affect whether it can provide a valid reference for foreigners who are in the process of litigation or have litigation needs.This thesis makes a comparative study of the two English versions of the criminal law in terms of lexical level,syntactic level and stylistic level from the perspective of functionalist translation theory.The two English versions selected in this thesis are from the magic weapon of Peking University and Law Press China respectively.This thesis is divided into five chapters.Chapter one introduces the research background,research purpose,research significance and the structure of the thesis.Chapter two is the literature review,which summarizes the previous studies on legal translation at home and abroad.Chapter three is the research foundation of the thesis,focusing on the functionalist translation theory.Chapter four analyzes the comparative study of the two English versions from the levels of lexis,syntax and style under the guidance of the functionalist translation theory.It is found thatalthough generally the two English versions can convey the meaning of the source text,but in the details,the English version from the Law Press China is more accurate and reasonable.There are some problems in the English version from the magic weapon of Peking University,such as insufficient understanding of legal language,insufficient understanding of the source text,improper translation of modal verbs,mistranslation and omission of the source text,etc.Chapter five is the conclusion,which discusses the research findings and limitations.