Sentence Characteristics and Translation Skills in Business Contract 2-1.doc

毕业论文（2010年4月13日初稿，第1次修改）题目这里需斟酌！你论文中还写了词法了！Sentence Characteristics and Translation Skills in Business Contract1.Introduction12.Studies on international business contracts22.1Definitions and main features of contracts and international business contracts22.2 General study on legal language and contract language43.Translation criteria43.1 General translation criteria43.2 Specific criteria for contractual translation5严格讲词法的内容，还不算Sentence Characteristics4.Practical analysis of E-C translation of IBC64.1 Lexical level74.1.1 Translation of synonyms74.1.2 Translation of old English words94.1.3 Translation of standard terms124.1.4 Translation of time words134.2 Syntactic level144.2.1 Readjustment of sentence elements Adjusting the subject Adjusting the object Adjusting the predicative164.2.2 Translation of the verbal group in the form of “Shall+V.”174.2.3 Translation of passive sentences184.2.4 Translation of conditional clauses204.3 Requirements for translators of IBC225.Conclusion24References25 1.IntroductionIn present-day commercial economic society with the trend of globalization, businesses around the world spare no effort to market their products and services into the world marketplace, thus, they always involve the signing of contracts, to be more specifically, the signing of international business contracts (IBC). If a company is to strike a triumphal move into the world market, it is essential and vital for it to translate all the relevant documents into the target language, of course, including the contracts. It is important to ensure that the translated international business contracts are not only linguistically accurate, but also in conformity with the purpose of the original text. Any inappropriate or even distorted translation of contracts does mean that businesses have to risk a loss.（INTRODUCTION是论文的引入部分，重点从语言特点和翻译学角度介绍论文的背景、研究范围、相关概念、前人研究的一些情况等，你这里还可在仔细斟酌、完善一下，你的写的太少、太简单了！） 2.Studies on international business contractsIn order to have an overall cognition and an impressive understanding in this regard, we should first be aware of, respectively, the basic concepts of contract and IBC as well as their main features.2.1Definitions and main features of contracts and international business contractsEvery country in the world has its own definition of contract. Following are the two different descriptions of definitions of contract defined by the laws of China and America respectively. The Contract Law of the Peoples Republic of China defines contract as follows: “A contract in this Law refers to an agreement establishing, modifying and terminating the civil rights and obligations between subjects of equal footing, that is, between equal natural persons, legal persons and other organization.” While the American one is according to Restatement (second) of Contracts (American Law Institute, 1981), a contract, in technical terms, is “a promise or set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty.” Through the two definitions of contract above, it is not hard to pinpoint the general features of contract, they are (1) a contract is a kind of legal conduct enforced by law (2) a contract is an agreement between both parties or among several parties (3) a contract is a kind of civil conduct enforced by law and based on the equality and willingness between parties.It is self-evident that IBC is one part of contract, certainly, the general definition and features of contract also hold true for IBC. However, there still exist its own definition and distinctive features of IBC. An international business contract, in the simplest terms, is a promise or a set of promises made by two or more parties from different countries for the purpose of transacting business. An IBC may be oral or written as stipulated in Article 11 of the United Nations Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods. But in China any contract is required to be in the form of writing including contracts across country borders. So, as far as this thesis is concerned, IBC refer to those evidenced by writing.In order to present IBCs definition further with its scope of application, it is necessary to propose the main features of IBC (take China for example), they are (1) the contracting subjects either one or both have no Chinese nationality (2) the contracting objects locate out of Chinese territory or beyond Chinese boundary(3) some contracting facts enforced by law occur out of Chinese territory. 2.2 General study on legal language and contract language Every field of expertise develops its own language features. (Gibbons, 2003:36) In the legislative and judicial activities, legal language is a variant of the national language. Legal language refers to the language used in the legal field for legal documents such as decrees, statues, commodity warranty, insurance policies, wills and testaments, business contracts, etc. All of these legal documents are concerned with rights and obligations; they are very formal and impersonal, which gives no sense of emotional feeling, personal opinions and judgments. They leave an impression of objectivity and impartiality on people.补全这个标题！As a sub-variety of legal language, contract language is an important branch of legal language. Being a language for special purpose, contract language has its distinctive linguistic features solemnity, preciseness and accuracy.3.Translation criteriaAs long as we set some criteria or norms in doing something, we can master the rules to perform well and perfect our work. This is true of translation. The criteria of translation have been set by many profound experts, thus, only have the knowledge of those standards can we perform translation well.3.1 General translation criteriaGeneral translation criteria refer to the principles that translators must abide by during translation practices, which also are the rules to assess the quality of translated text. Translation criteria have been set as paramount standards for translators to pursue.For a long time, there are many translators and scholars bring forward a variety of translation criteria. In China, the well-acknowledged principles for translation should be contributed by Yan Fu, which is the formulation of his classic tripartite standard for excellence in translation, namely Xin, Da, Ya, or Faithfulness, Expressiveness, and Elegance in English.Xin, or Faithfulness in English, is considered as the first principle for a translator to follow, that is, the translated text should strictly stick by the source text. Da, expressiveness in English, or lucidity in a more formal way, points out that the style and manner of writing should be of the same character as that of the original. Ya, widely accepted as elegancy in English, emphasize rhetoric, which is a kind of aesthetic pursuit to translators during translation practices.History has proved that, the famous translation criteria of “Xin, Da, Ya” supposed by Yan Fu always act as a guide to our countrys translation practices. Still today, the tripartite standard is regarded as a golden rule to many translators and scholars in their translation activities. Hence, it is believed that “Xin, Da, Ya” is a kind of incisive translation criteria.3.2 Specific criteria for contractual translationBase on the above three-character translation criteria, it is necessary, combining the linguistic features and format requirement of IBC, to put forward two specific criteria for contractual translation.The first criterion that should be stuck to in translating contract is Faithfulness and Accuracy, whose sub-standards are (1) precision of wording; (2) completeness of translated text. As it has been mentioned before, IBC concern the economic interests of all contracting parties and are enforced by law, contractual translation should be faithful and accurate. That means the translated text should be strictly faithful to the source text and the translators cannot add or cut anything at will to the translated content. Moreover, he or she should, especially, pay more attention to those business terms and professional legal terms. Instead of taking for granted, translators should adopt careful and cautious attitude to translate those words.The second criterion is Expressiveness and Smoothness. It requires translators express what they have understood from contracts by employing normative and smooth language which also conform to contractual language requirement. Because contract English belong to the solemn style, translators are not allowed to handle wording randomly. Hence, in order to fulfill the standard of expressiveness and smoothness of contract language, translators should apply contract words normatively, which abide by the ways accepted through common practice.4.Practical analysis of E-C translation of IBCBased on the discussion on contract language in the first part and the criteria for contractual translation in the second part, now it is time to fractionize the above macro-elements of contract concerned into the micro-levels-practical analysis of E-C translation of IBC.Though employing the “top-down procedure”, some E-C translation techniques of IBC are to be explored in the functionalist approach. In the following discussions, lexical level and syntactic level are to be covered in detail.4.1 Lexical levelThe scope of vocabulary applied in IBC is extremely wide, totally different from that in ordinary English. Only be aware of and accumulate those distinct characteristics of words application in IBC can translators meet the requirement to the contractual translation. Following four lexical features of IBC will be introduced and their practical E-C translation in IBC will be analyzed one by one.4.1.1 Translation of synonymsThe coordination of all types of synonyms or near synonyms is easily found in IBC. They are usually connected by “and”/ “or” to express the same meaning. This way of wording expresses a concept more exactly and makes the provision more clear and intelligible, so as to eliminate ambiguous meaning, possible loopholes and conflicts on obligations and to ensure absolute accuracy as well. However, one concept, more often than not, in Chinese contract documents is just expressed by a single word or term. Hence, in the E-C translation, it is common to translate the concept expressed by the coordination of synonyms in English into one term in Chinese to serve the same functions as the original text. For example, coordination of noun synonyms: terms and conditions 条款 force and effect 效力 coordination of verb synonyms: make and sign 签订 fulfill and perform 履行 coordination of adjective synonyms: null and void 无效 final and conclusive 最终 coordination of pronoun synonyms: each and every 每 all and any 所有 coordination of preposition synonyms: by and between 与 save and except 除了The examples of coordination of synonyms translation in sentence will enrich the discussion.Original 1: This agreement and any rights or obligation hereunder are not transferable or assignable by one party to this agreement without the consent of the other party hereto. Target: 本协议以及本协议所规定的权力或义务不经另一方同意不得擅自转让。It can be seen that, in this example, “transferable or assignable” is translated into one Chinese term “转让”.Original 2: The parties may, through consultation, make amendments to and revision of this contract as and when the need arises.Target: 双方可在必要时通过协商修改本合同。The synonyms “amendments to and revision of” and “as and when” are translated into “修改” and “在时” respectively.4.1.2 Translation of old English wordsIBC preserves itself a peculiar kind of vocabulary-old English words or phrases. In modern English, these words have been seldom used in both oral and written language. However, drafters of IBC must choose them as a tradition. The pervasive usage of old English words or expressions in IBC can be regarded as a way of endowing business contracts with solemn and archaic atmosphere as well as avoiding ambiguity and improving clarity. There are three common forms of old English words, whose structures are “here-prep”, “there-prep” and “where-prep”.As the “here-prep” form has the basic meaning of “this”, those old English words whose stem is “here” are translated into “本”, “这”, “此” in Chinese accordingly. The “there-prep” form is similar to “here-prep” form except that “there” refers to “that”. Thus, the old English words base on the “there” stem are rendered into “那”, “其”, “该” in their Chinese counterpart. The “where-prep” form with the basic meaning of “which” is comparatively less used in IBC except for the two words “whereas” and “whereby”. Examples of the above three compound adverbs forms are as follows:Original 1: “Licensed products” means the devices and products described in Schedule 1 annexed hereto together with all improvement and modification thereof or development with respect thereto.Target: “特许产品”系指在本协议附表1中所述的装置和产品，及其全部改进和修改的产品或与之有关的研制产品。In this sentence, “hereto” means “to this” which translated into “本协议的”; “thereto” here means “to that” which translated into “与此” or “与之”.Original 2: “Products” means any and all agricultural products or any products derived therefrom.Target: “产品”一词，系指一切农产品或由此衍生的任何产品。“Therefrom” in this sentence equal to “from that”, which usually translated into “由此”.Original 3: Whereas, A company is a manufacturer of X and has certain technical information and experiences which may be useful in developing the product as hereinafter defined, the partied hereto agree as follows:Target: 鉴于A公司是X制造商，并拥有有助于开发下列产品的一定技术信息和经验，为此，双方达成以下协议：In daily life language, “whereas” is a conjunction with the meaning of “but”, “while” and “on the contrary”, which has transitional mood. In IBC, however, it is often translated into Chinese as “鉴于” or “有鉴于”.There are still many other old English words which cannot be exemplified for each. But from the following table the overview of other words and their corresponding Chinese version can be seen.Old English wordsChinese translationOld English wordsChinese translationHereafter自此以后Thereafter从那以后Hereby据此，特此Thereon在其上Hereof中的Thereunder在那下面，依据Hereinafter以下Whereof关于Hereunder此后下文中Whereby凭借Herewith与一道Wherein在其中(胡庚申, 2004：365366)In addition, these old English words sometimes are concerned with the collocation of set phrases. In this case, it is necessary to understand and translate those archaic words according to the concrete context without applying or copying mechanically. For example,Original 4: A agrees to extend to B throughout the life of this agreement technical information relating to the product manufacture and other information pertinent to the design, assembly or service of the products and further improvements thereon.Target: A 方同意在整个协议期间向B方提供有关生产指定产品的技术情报和其他有关产品的设计、组装、维修及其进一步改进的资料。Here the usage of “thereon” involving the collocation of the set phrase “improvement on” (对的改进). In this context, “improvements thereon” means “improvements on the products”, whose Chinese version should be “产品的改进”.4.1.3 Translation of standard termsIn IBC, specialized terms are often adopted instead of common words. In consideration of the formal style of the wording in IBC, those colloquial words should be refrained from using in preference to formal words as much as possible. In order to achieve the solemnity and dignity in wording, standard terms should be taken care to use as much as possible in the translation of IBC. For example:Original 1: The bank authorized by the holder to receive payment shall be liable only for crediting the sum on the bill to the holders account according to the items specified in the bill. The bank which the drawee authorized to make the payment shall be liable only for paying the sum on the bill from the drawees account according to the items specified in the bill.Target: 受持票人委托进行收款的银行的责任限于按照汇票上记载的事项将汇票金额贷记入持票人账户。受受票人委托付款的银行的责任限于按照汇票上记载的事项从受票人账户支付汇票金额。The word “holder” in the source text can only be translated as “持票人” instead of “持有人”, “credit” as “贷记” instead of “信用”, “drawee” as “受票人”, and “bill” as “汇票” instead of “账单” in line with the contract terminology. Here is another example:Original 2: In consideration of you making a loan available to the borrower A, we hereby issue this guarantee for the account of the borrower A and agree as follows:Target: 鉴于你方向借款人A提供了一笔贷款，我行特此为借款人A出具保函并保证如下：In the translating the above fragment of IBC, the translator is very cautious in his choice of words for the Chinese version, particularly with regard to the rendering of the underlined parts of the original: instead of using “考虑到” to render “in consideration of”, the translator employs “鉴于” which is more formal and more commonly used in similar official contract documents in Chinese; the translator chooses “你方” which is a term in preference to “你们” which is more informal. The same is also true of “借款人”instead of “借钱人”, “保函” instead of “保证人” and “出具” instead of “写”.4.1.4 Translation of time wordsThe terms and conditions of shipment and payment in IBC must respectively be set explicitly in terms of the time limitation. In other words, the requirement to time setting is rather strict. Therefore, the translated text concerned the stipulation of time should be identical with the original text. For example,Original 1: Payment: By irrevocable L/C at sight to reach the sellers 30 days before the time of shipment. The L/C shall be valid for negotiation in Ch