The Application Of Functional Equivalence Theory In E-C Contract Translation

With the acceleration of globalization,China has frequent trade and exchange activities with other countries.In order to ensure success in cooperation,contract is playing an important role as a legal instrument binding the parties and the translation of such documents needs to be the accurate specifications of both parties’ rights and obligations.This report is based on the translation of the intercollegiate MOA between the Beijing Institute of Technology(BIT)and a University in UK,and analyzed the application of functional equivalence theory in contract translation.Nida’s functional equivalence theory emphasizes the response of the receptor,requiring that the translator make the source text readers and target text readers achieve the same understanding of the translated text as much as possible.This report analyzes the applicability of Nida’s functional equivalence theory in the E-C contract translation from lexical,syntactic and textual level,so as to ensure the correct translation of the contract and to enable the parties concerned to have a near-identical understanding of the content of the contract.This report is expected to provide reference for future contract-related translations and for accurate and rigorous translation of contracts.This report consists of four parts.The first part is the description of the translation task,which mainly describes the source text and the translation process.The second part details the characteristics of contracts,including the classification and linguistic features of the contract.The third part is a review of functional equivalence theory,which mainly elaborates on Nida’s formal equivalence theory,dynamic equivalence theory and functional equivalence theory,as well as the feasibility of using functional equivalence theory to guide contract translation.The forth part analyzes the application of functional equivalence theory through specific examples,followed by a summary.