4.1 Translation of Business English at Lexical Level 7

4.2 Translation of Business English at Syntactic Level 9

4.3 Translation of Business English at Stylistic Level 11

4.4 Translation of Business English at Cultural Level 14

5 Conclusion 16

References 18

On the Chinese Translation of Business English from the Perspective of Functional Equivalence

1 Introduction

Due to China’s implementing the opening-up and entrances the WTO (World Trade Organization), the economic development of china is rapid now. In view of these good opportunities, a lot of foreign-funded enterprises and joint ventures have been invested in china. At the same time, many Chinese businessmen want to invest some objects overseas too. But, not all of them are good at English or Chinese, so they cannot communicate with their foreign cooperative partners fluently. In this condition, both businessmen and enterprises in home or aboard need translators or interpreters urgently in their international trades. Hence, there are many business documents involved in these international businesses, for example, contract, application letter, advertisement and so on.

On the other hand, non-businessmen like travellers, government officers, lawyers, etc. , even some organizations also need international business documents for reference. Many of them can not get the key point of these complicated documents clearly and they usually misunderstand the meaning of source texts. For them, it’s important to translate these business documents exactly, which can help them deal with their works as well as communication problems efficiently.

In summary, under the background of globalization, business translation as a tool of cross-nation communication is very important. Not only businesspersons but also non-businesspersons are in need of correct and fast business translation to make a further progress in international business trades. Under this condition, they have to make sure that the target texts are accurate with the source texts. All the factors above show that business translation plays a remarkable role in international business trades.  

The business English translation has being studied from the Second World War. Up to now, there are lots of scholars and experts around the world have discussed many styles and language features of business translation. Of course, they have achieved huge contributions in business English translation, but they still have a huge space to complete their theories. In China, over 200 universities have offered business translation as an important subject and more than 400 colleges and universities have offered this subject and related subjects about business translation. Many scholars and linguists at home have achieved a lot of rich fruits in business English translation. For example, a famous Chinese scholar Liao Ying put forward the view that 13 features of business contracts and he summarized a concept called seven Cs (Completeness, Concreteness, Conciseness, Consideration, Clearness, Courtesy), which talks about the “cross-nation business practical writings in the book English for International Business---Theory, Language and Practice” (2005). Meanwhile, anther scholar Liu Zhenqian has the same point with Liao Ying. We also have professor Xu Qin and Wu Ying have presented the view that the principles of business translation are “adaptation before translation, information equivalence, grammatical normality and lexical appropriateness” (2003). It is no doubt that all these views mentioned above are very useful and necessary for us to apply in business translation. But, all these scholars only stress the business information equivalence or the features of business translation. They have not discussed that combination of business translation and functional equivalence and the practical business translation. They just hold their perspectives from one angle.

When it comes to the foreign researchers, there are a number of great achievements too. As far as I known, the theory of equivalence have got much more attention after the mid-20th century. We can see there are a lot of linguists such as Nida, Jacokbson, Taber and Baker, etc. who have explored the concept of equivalence and these people have made a further study on this subject. For example, Nida pointed out “closest natural equivalent” and “equivalence in difference” (1964). Of course, Baker held view that “communicative equivalent” and “pragmatic equivalent” (1992). These theories above are all developed at different stages in the 21st century. Compared with business translation in china, foreign studies are restricted on the language traits and teaching methodology of business English exchanges. There is a good example: the two famous linguists Ellis and Jonson, who are famous for well-known translation concepts. They consider that there are three general characteristics, which call sense of purpose, social aspects and clear communication in business translation. Two linguists just studied business English feature and teaching methodology in their book Teaching Business English. Honestly speaking, it doesn’t include the business English translation, although these studies of the practical business translation have gone a long way.