On English Translation Of Chinese Corporate Profiles From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

Owing to economic globalization and popularization of the Internet, China iscarrying on ever-growing economic exchanges with countries across the world.Meanwhile, more and more Chinese corporations have taken this great opportunity toget involved in the international market seeking communication and cooperation withcompanies in other countries. Therefore, the translation of corporate profileseventually plays a vital role in this process. A well-translated corporate profilecontributes to good corporate image as well as the popularity and competitiveness ofits products. Aiming to establish good corporate images, promote products andenhance the competitiveness of Chinese corporations, corporate profile is a specialtext type with intended purpose. For the special translational purpose of corporateprofiles, traditional translational principle of “Equivalence” seems to be inadequate.In spite of this, the translation of corporate profiles has not received sufficientacademic attention in China. Translation strategies under the guidance ofequivalence-based translation theory are far from satisfactory for reasons as follows:Chinese and English belong to different language families with distinctive culturalbackgrounds. So, there is no absolute equivalence in the translation of corporateprofiles. The specific features of corporate profiles add complexity to its translation. Ifformal equivalence is blindly sought in the translation of corporate profiles, it will bedifficult to realize the communicative function.German functionalists approach, with Skopos Theory as its core, has offered anew perspective and theoretical basis for the translation of corporate profiles. It hasbeen regarded as a breakthrough and an important supplement to traditionaltranslation ideas. According to Vermeer’s Skopos Theory, any form of translation canbe taken as an action which has certain skopos. The prime principle that determines any translation process is the skopos of the overall translation action. That is “endjustifies means”. The skopos and intended function of the target text determinetranslation strategies and methods. As a result, Skopos Theory provides rationale forsome unconventional translation strategies. More importantly, the core concepts canbe applied to the translation of corporate profiles.The translation of corporate profiles deals not only with language-to-languagetransformation, but also a cultural shift. Differences at levels of linguistic and culturalare commonly seen in Chinese and English corporate profiles. Therefore, translatorsshould pay more attention to linguistic and cultural features in the English translationof Chinese corporate profiles for the sake of realizing target readers’ expectation.Focusing on the English translation of Chinese corporate profiles from the perspectiveof “Skopos Theory”, this thesis bears scientific values in translation studies byadopting40authentic bilingual versions of corporate profiles selected randomly from“Top100Enterprises of Shandong Province in2013”(Notification for Top100Enterprises of Shandong Province in2013,2013). This thesis adopts the researchmethods of comparative analysis and case study and analyzes Chinese corporateprofiles from the perspective of Skopos Theory. By this means, the author finds outseveral errors and problems existing in the translation of Chinese corporate profilesand provides feasible solutions accordingly. Therefore, this research is comparativelyscientific and practical.This thesis is divided into6Chapters: Chapter One gives a brief description ofthe study, analyzes the significance of the research and presents research methodologyand the layout this thesis. Chapter Two introduces a new theoretical framework ofSkopos Theory and reviews studies of corporate profile translation in China. ChapterThree provides a comparative analysis of Chinese and English corporate profiles fromangles of definition and functions, and give accounts for differences of corporateprofiles at levels of culture, language style, and syntactic structure. Chapter Fourdiscusses errors and problems arising in the English translation of Chinese corporateprofiles and make an analysis on the basis of Skopos Theory. Furthermore, the authorwill illustrate errors and problems existing in the translation with examples and provide explanation and new versions of translation which demonstrates obviousimprovement. Chapter Five proposes solutions to improve the English translation ofChinese corporate profiles which include setting up corpus and digital library forpragmatic translation just like corporate profiles and adopting translating strategiesand methods such as localization, annotation, and omission, etc. Chapter Sixconcludes with the major findings that it is feasible to guide the English translation ofChinese corporate profiles from the perspective of Skopos Theory. It is expected thattranslators should bear in mind the intended purpose of corporate profiles and producea version that is both comprehensible and acceptable for target readers. At last, it willput forward suggestions for future researches in this field.