Pragmatic Failures In E-C Translation Of Business Contracts:from The Perspective Of Tation Theory

With the integration of world economy and the skyrocketing growth of international trade which essentially is the exchange of services and commodities across national borders, China, as one of the developing heavyweights in the world, exerts increasingly significant influence on world trade. Correspondingly, an ocean of international business contracts needing to be translated into Chinese spring up in that English is universally accepted as the dominant language in cross-national transactions. Vast majority of enterprises attach great importance to the translation of international business contracts. However, the fact that pragmatic failures are pervasive makes the quality of rendition far from being satisfactory.This phenomenon exerts a tremendous fascination on domestic scholars who have carried out studies on business contracts from diverse perspectives, including but not limited to comparing stylistic features between Chinese and English business contracts, proposing strategies to achieve the expected effects in the light of Functional Equivalence and Skopos Theory and putting forward numerous techniques to better translate business contracts from the linguistic point of view, incorporating Cooperative Principle, Register Theory, Thematic Progression Pattern, Pragmatics and Cohesive Devices. In addition, multitudes of linguistic theories, including Adaptation Theory first proposed by Jef Verschueren, are employed to expound pragmatic failures committed by translators in E-C translation of business contracts.Being distinct from previous studies on E-C translation of business contracts which focus on demonstrating language features or propounding translation strategies, this thesis adopts case study and logic deduction as methodologies and Adaptation Theory as theoretical framework to illustrate that though lacking specialized knowledge and failing to grasp culture differences can inevitably result in pragmatic failures in E-C translation of business contracts, failing to make dynamic adaptation to the specific communicative context is one of the chief causes leading to pragmatic failures. Furthermore, the author also intends to argue that not only translators are held responsible for the pragmatic failures arising in the translation of business contracts, but also the companies and authorities concerned are to blame for such failures on account that the three parties are highly supposed to make dynamic adaptation to the specific communicative context and make joint efforts for the purposes of reducing pragmatic failures and facilitating transactions.The author of this thesis conducts this research with the expectation to capture people’s, especially the translator’s, companies’and authorities’ attention to the pragmatic failures in E-C translation of business contracts. It is the author’s sincere anticipation that proposed countermeasures for reducing pragmatic failures in E-C translation of business contracts may enlighten translators, companies and authorities concerned so that relevant individuals or the whole country can reap great benefits from desirable rendition.