An E-C Translation Report On A Contract For International Sales

This thesis is an E-C translation report. The author was commissioned by the seller to translate a twenty-thousand-word international sales contract. Party A to this contract is a furniture factory in Ningbo, Party B is a furniture importer in the United States, and the contract is written by Party B in English. The content of this contract includes business partnership contract, sales contract, sales conformation and standard operating procedure. The whole contract was translated by the author independently. Categorized as a type of English legal text, this contract has corresponding linguistic and stylistic features, including accurate and normative words, long and complex sentences, strict structures and high stylized format, as well as lots of technical terms, legal jargons,archaic words, redundant words, and so on.In this report, the author selected Part 2- Part 8 of the contract, totaling more than ten thousand words as the object of study. In the process of translation, under the guidance of functional equivalence theory, the author discussed contract translation techniques from the perspective of legal text translation. Through analyzing the stylistic features of international sales contract categorized as a type of legal text from lexical, syntactical and textual levels, the author adopted such practicable translation techniques as amplification, change of voices,conversion and division to meet the translation criterion and remove misunderstandings caused by the obscurity of the original text thereby assuring the strictness and accuracy of the translated text. Besides, the author analyzed the translation of the commonly used words and sentences in legal contracts with specific examples, covering legal words, archaic words, the combination of synonyms, and long sentences.Through this translation practice, the author deepened the comprehension of translation theory, grasped the techniques for contract translation, and improved translation skills. In the mean time, this translation practice provides valuable experience for the author’s future translation practice. It is expected that this translation report could shed light on translation of this type of text, serving as reference for other translators in this regard.