A Pragmatic Approach On The Translation Of Business Discourse

Human languages share some characteristics, but cultures in which they embed are different. Different cultures have their own modes of cognition and perspective on understanding phenomena of nature and society. With development of the human history, languages have developed their own peculiar way and system to express the same intention. Context in which the utterance is used and relations between the utterors should be taken into account in translation in order to render the real intention of the author and pragmatic meaning and function of the original text.Translation is one way of cross-cultural communication. Translator should try to carry over the information that is in line with the communicative purpose, rather than just the surface content and linguistic structure. Addition and ellipsis of words and phrases, linguistic structure adjustment, and image transformation may be used in translation according to expressive norms of each language in order to make the communication a success. Pragmatic arppoach is just one of approaches in translation, which does not rule out literal translation when the similar linguistic structure can be used to express the same mode of cognition and cultural image.English today is unique in that it is an almost universally accepted language in international business circles. In global business, the message alone is not the whole story because language has many more functions than the purely informative one; social connotation, adaptation to the customer, integration into local culture are all decisive factors in effective business communication and marketing. This opens up an entirely new research field within business English translation, a field called "localization in globalization." A pragmatic approach on business translation can help the translation to achieve its purpose, i.e., to bridge the cultural gap, to avoid any possible misunderstanding, and to ensure the success of business through a smooth communication. This is quite different from literary translation in which covert translation is often stressed so as to introduce foreign culture to the reader.Pragmatics studies the actual use of language, taking the language user and its context into consideration. So pragmatics will be very valuable in business translation which stresses on pragmatic functions and the communicative purpose of a business discourse rather than the recreation of beauty in a new cultural context as literary translation does. In one word, this paper tries to introduce some fruits in pragmatic study into business translation practice. Part one is to introduce what pragmatics is about, its history, and how does it concern translation. In part two, the difference of deixis between Chinese and English and how this problem can be overcome is discussed. Part three is about how explication of implicature of the original text can have an influence on the fulfillment of the communicative purpose of translation. Part four tries to find a solution to achieve equivalence of communicative effect when politeness norms are different between Chinese and English. Part five is to explore the possibility to find a cognitive basis for pragmatic perspective on business translation through introducing relevance theory into guiding the business translation practice. Part six is to conclude the value and significance of the pragmatic approach on business translation.