A Study of Functional Equivalence in Chinese-English Translation of Legal Terms—Take The Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China for Example_英语论文

摘要

《中华人民共和国合同法》(以下简称合同法)为中外经济交往、商业和贸易合作发展提供了法律框架。因此，为满足日益频繁的中外商业、贸易合作，目前我们急需一部高质量的英文版合同法。在合同法的中译英过程中，法律术语翻译的准确性极为重要，但是，由于中英政治、文化、语言体系和法系之间存在较多的差异，法律术语的翻译往往找不到完全对等的翻译。因此，本文通过研究这一现象，尝试应用奈达的功能对等理论，并运用具体的翻译方法进行案例分析，探讨如何实现法律术语的等效翻译，以期发挥功能对等理论对法律翻译实践的指导性作用。

关键词：《中华人民共和国合同法》  法律术语翻译  对等缺失  功能对等理论  对等翻译方法

Abstract

In China, The Contract Law of People’s Republic of China(thereafter The PRC Contract Law) provides legal framework for the development of economic exchanges, business and trade cooperation between China and foreign countries. For this reason, a high quality English version of The PRC Contract Law is in urgent demand. And in the process of C-E translation, finding the accurate equivalents of legal terms is the primary task. However, because of the difference between the civil law and the common law system, politics, culture and languages, there is a phenomenon of the absence of equivalent legal terms. Therefore, the paper applies Eugene Nida’s functional equivalence theory and translation methods to analyze case study of how to achieve equivalent legal terms, trying to adopt the functional equivalence theory to guide the legal translation practice.

Key words: The PRC Contract Law  functional equivalence theory  legal terms translation  absence of equivalence  equivalent translation methods

Contents

Chapter One  Introduction 1

1.1  Background of the Study 1

1.2  Rationale and Aim of the Study 2

1.3  Structure of the Dissertation 2

Chapter Two  Literature Review 4

2.1  Legal Terms 4

2.1.1 Definition of the Legal Terms 4

2.1.2 Characteristics of the Legal Terms 5

2.2  Previous Study of the Legal Terminological Translation 6

Chapter Three  Theoretical Framework 8

3.1  Dynamic Equivalence 8

3.2  Formal Equivalence 9

Chapter Four Equivalent Translation of Legal Terms of the PRC Contract Law 10

4.1  Introduction of the Legal Terminological Translation 10

4.1.1 Reasons for the Absence of Equivalent Legal Terms in C-E Translation 10

4.1.2 Principles for the Legal Terminological Translation 10

4.2  Case study on the Equivalent Translation of the Legal Terms 11

4.2.1 Dynamic Equivalence 12

4.2.2 Formal Equivalence 13

4.3  Case Study on the Application of Translation Methods of Legal Terms 14

4.3.1 Literal Translation 14

4.3.2 Paraphrase 15

4.3.3 Lexical Expansion 15

Chapter Five Conclusion 17

5.1  Major Findings 17

5.2  Limitations 18

Bibliography 19

Acknowledgments 20