Cultural Differences Viewed In Sino-us State-owned Company Profiles

Company profiles considered as an important access to delivering companies’information and advertising products and services, played an important role in internationalcompetition. However, the Chinese to English translation quality of company profiles is farfrom satisfactory, without considering cultural factors. Thus, the author views that thetranslation of Chinese state-owned company profiles should not just behaviors oftranslating languages, but of considering readers’ cultural background to understand theEnglish texts of Chinese state-owned company profiles. This thesis aims to expose thecultural differences in Chinese and English texts of company profiles, and find out existingproblems in the Chinese to English texts of company profiles in China. It is expected thatthe translation quality of company profiles in China can be improved.Five chapters are included in the thesis.Chapter One as the introduction part makes an introduction of the study state of thecompany profiles in China. Chapter Two reviews the previous researches on English textsof Chinese company profiles from the three perspectives: linguistic, cultural and functionalperspectives, and points out that they lack detailed analysis of differences in Chinesecompany profiles and English company profiles from cultural perspective. Chapter Three isthe theoretical part, in which Hall’s high-Context and low-Context communication,Hofstede’s value dimensions, and Kaplan’s cultural thought patterns are given a detailedanalysis. Chapter Four makes an in-depth analysis of the cultural differences in Chinese andEnglish texts of company profiles, with the English text of American Airlines as acomparison. Culture concerning on the total patterns of beliefs, customs, histories, modesof thinking, etc., has a great impact on the sentence structures of company profiles, whichleads to differences in Chinese text and English text. Chapter Five points out that somecultural factors need to be considered in the process of conducting the English texts ofChinese company profiles of state-owned company profiles.This paper is to arouse translators’ attention to the quality improvement of the Englishtexts of Chinese company profiles so as to avoid readers’ misunderstanding bystrengthening the cross-cultural awareness, and help foreigners get more understanding ofcompany profiles.