Contrastive Studies Of Two English Versions Of The Contract Law Of The P. R. C.

With the galobalization of world economy, China's reform and opening policies to the outside world, especially China's entry into the WTO, the number of international trade issues is increasing, most of which have to be settled in the courts with the laws. And our legal construction has been improved quickly. So the needs for legal translation have been increasing and the study of legal translation will become an important research topic.Law is the social regulation, the rule for human behavior and the conduct of government, created by government institutions. As the carrier of law, legal language has its own features, such as frequent use of archaic and loan words; frequent employment of long and complicated sentences. However, in our country, the research on these aspects began late, so the work on legal translation lags behind the western developed countries as a whole, especially the case-oriented study of contract based on the relevant theories is seldom found.The Contract Law, which composes one of the important components of the Civil Law, plays a significant role in protection of contract parties'legal rights and interests, maintenance of the social economy order and promotion of socialist modernization. Adopted at the Second Session of the Ninth National People's Congress, Contract Law of the People's Republic of China was carried out on October 1st, 1999. The English versions of the CLPRC have been published by China Legal System Publishing House in 1999 and by China Fangzheng Press in 2004 respectively. The publication of the English versions made contribution to regulating oversea investment and enhancing the international status of our country. But, at the same time, there are some demerits and defects in the English versions.Translation is an inter-culture communication which has strict practicing rules and it must be done based on relevant theories. Among many theories developed in the Eastern and Western countries, Eugene A. Nada's"Functional Equivalence"theory is one of the most widely accepted theories. He pointed out that"Translating consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source-language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style"(2004:12). The legal translation must follow the rules of both lingual function equivalence and legal function equivalence. On the basis of Nida's"Functional Equivalence"this thesis makes a comparative study of translation examples in the two versions of the CLPRC. The aim is to discuss some demerits and defects of these two versions and to explore the useful techniques that will lead to the closest natural equivalence in legal translation.The whole thesis consists seven chapters. The first chapter introduces the general background and the significance of its English version. The second gives an introduction of the development of the translation theories, mainly Nida's"Functional Equivalence". The third introduces the relevant studies on legal language and translation. The forth mainly analyzes the features of legal English and the embodiments of these features in the contract. Chapter five and six, which constitute the majority of this thesis, conduct a detailed comparison between the two English versions. In the fifth chapter, the author points out the defects in the versions in aspects of lexicon, syntax and style. In the sixth one, the techniques and strategies of legal translation are put forward. The seventh is the conclusion of the thesis.Due to its features, legal translation not only demands translators'competent translation skills but also their profound knowledge of the law. The author only made a preliminary study on the"Functional Equivalence"of legal translation, so a further study must be made in the future study and work. And the author hopes this will arouse more interest in this field.