ABSTRACT

With the rise of Chinese economy and the deepening process of internationalization, our foreign trade becomes increasingly frequent. Undoubtedly, business contracts are an essential part in the increasingly frequent foreign trade. Unlike other ordinary texts, business contracts have the force of law, the accurate translation of which is vital to ease trade friction. In order to make target-text readers achieve the same effect or response as that of the original readers while they share different culture backgrounds, we should have a good command of the features of business contracts and functional equivalence theory. The thesis summarizes the structure of business contracts as well as the language features. Meanwhile, it puts forward related translation strategies at the level of vocabulary and sentences. 

Keywords：business contracts; translation; functional equivalence theory

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABSTRACT

摘要

Chapter One INTRODUCTION-1

Chapter Two LITERATURE REVIEW-2

2.1 Previous Studies on Business Contract and its Translation-2

2.2 Previous Studies on the Application of FET-3

Chapter Three NIDA’S FUNCTIONAL EQUIVALENCE THEORY-4

3.1 A Brief Introduction of FET-4

3.2 Principles of Functional Equivalence Theory-5

Chapter Four BUSINESS CONTRACTS-7

4.1 An Overview of Business Contracts-7

4.2 Linguistic Features of English Business Contracts-8

4.2.1 Lexical Features of English Business Contracts-8

4.2.2 Syntactic features of English business contracts-9

4.2.3 Textual features of English business contracts-10

Chapter Five Strategies in Translating Chinese Business Contracts under Functional Equivalence Theory-12

5.1 Domestication and Foreignization-12

5.2 Ways of Translating Words-12

5.2.1 Accurate use of technical terms-12

5.2.2 Proper use of idiomatic adverb-13

5.2.3 Conversion of words-14

5.3 Ways of Translating Sentences-15

5.3.1Sequential translation-15

5.3.2 Non-sequential translation-15

5.3.3 Free translation-16

Chapter Six Conclusion-18

REFERENCES-20