影響英語商貿(mào)合同翻譯的因素（全英文）

1、影響英語商貿(mào)合同翻譯的因素（全英文）On Factors Influencing the Translation of English Commercial Contract一、綜述國內(nèi)外對本課題的研究動態(tài)，說明選題的依據(jù)和意義：合同是平等主體的自然人、法人、其他組織之間設(shè)立、變更、終止民事 權(quán)利義務(wù)關(guān)系的協(xié)議。合同的翻譯主要是指涉外合同，尤其是經(jīng)濟(jì)合同 的翻譯，而且以漢譯英居多。合同一經(jīng)依法訂立，就成為一種法律文件 而具有法律的約束力，成為爭議解決的法律依據(jù)。合同的特點(diǎn)給合同的 翻譯提出了極其嚴(yán)格的要求。因此，合同的翻譯，首先必須把握兩個問 題，一是要真正認(rèn)識合同語言的特點(diǎn)，二是要確立合理的

2、、行之有效的 合同翻譯的質(zhì)量標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。哲學(xué)家大衛(wèi)修謨認(rèn)為，”法與法律制度是一種純 粹的語言形式，法的世界肇始于語言，法律是通過語詞訂立和公布的?！?語言作為一種表述工具，在表述合同規(guī)范時必須遵守合同語言使用的嚴(yán) 謹(jǐn)準(zhǔn)確性、莊嚴(yán)規(guī)范性和簡潔樸實(shí)性。國內(nèi)外學(xué)者認(rèn)為，合同翻譯應(yīng)遵 循三個標(biāo)準(zhǔn)：1 .合同語言的特點(diǎn)概述。2.合同翻譯的理解過程中的合法前提和求信標(biāo)準(zhǔn)。3 .合法前提和求信標(biāo)準(zhǔn)在合 同翻譯實(shí)踐中的運(yùn)用。合同作為國際貿(mào)易的一種重要商業(yè)文書，研究其 漢英翻譯存在的問題，找出解決和防止的方法，對于促進(jìn)全球經(jīng)濟(jì)和諧 開展，保持合同翻譯的準(zhǔn)確性和嚴(yán)謹(jǐn)性，都有重大的意義。鑒于商貿(mào)活Single and P

3、lural FormsIn a contract, the single and the plural forms of some words have different meaning. There are some examples:E.g. （4） Damages and damageWe hereby claim US $ 1,650 damages from you for shortage in weight of the consignment.我們對該批貨物短重向貴方索取1, 650美元的賠償費(fèi)。（2）The buyer shall be responsible for th

4、e damage caused during the transit.買方應(yīng)負(fù)責(zé)運(yùn)輸途中的損壞。（陳建平34）Damages means law money which is paid to someone by a person or organization who has been responsible for causing them injury or loss.Damage means the process of spoiling the condition or quality of something and the harm or loss that result.E.g

5、. （5） Shipment and shipmentsWe insist on putting off the shipment till next March.我們堅(jiān)持把交貨期延至明年四月。（2）According to the shipping schedule, there will be two shipments of crude oil before the end of the year.根據(jù)船期，年底前還有兩船原油。（戚云方163-173）Shipment means the action of sending, carrying, and delivering goods,

6、 or the time of sending goods, can be translated as 裝運(yùn)， 裝舟裝運(yùn)時間.Shipments means a large amount of goods sent together to a place, or the act of sending them, can be translated as 裝運(yùn)的貨物 （量）.SynonymAs we know, a contract is a legal document, thus accuracy, precision and clarity of wording should be the

7、 goal of the language used in it. In order to avoid any ambiguity or vagueness, the contract drafters tend to use many synonyms in a contract.Synonym is a word or phrase which has the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or phrase in the same language. They are used in English commercial

8、contracts are often connected by and or or. However, they are not exactly alike, and have a slightly different meaning.Hence, some of them can be translated as one word while others can not.E.g. (6) Prosecution and executionAll permits, taxes and other fees arising from the prosecution and execution

9、 of the project shall be solely shouldered by the Contractor.The version:工程施工過程中所產(chǎn)生的許可證費(fèi)、稅費(fèi)及其他費(fèi)用全部有承包方 負(fù)擔(dān)。(陳建平34)Prosecution means the carrying out of something that needs to be done. Execution: the carrying out, performance, or completion of an order, pan, or piece of work. In this sentence, zzpros

10、ecution, and “execution are synonyms but they often was translated dividedly as 執(zhí)行and 施工。And we should translate this sentence as following:工程執(zhí)行、施工過程中所產(chǎn)生的許可證費(fèi)、稅費(fèi)及其他費(fèi)用均有承包方承當(dāng)。E.g. (7) Term and conditionThe Seller agrees to sell and the Buyer agrees to purchase the under-mentioned commodity according

11、to the terms and conditions stipulated below:The version:買賣雙方同意按以下條款買賣以下貨物：（陳建平34）As we know, term and condition are synonyms, they have the same meaning ”條 件、條款“and often be used together.Conditional Adverbial Clauses.We have studied that conditional adverbial clauses are frequently used in a contr

12、act and we also studied that the conditional adverbial clauses are often introduced by if, whereas, should”, unlessJsubject to, in case, in the event of”, “providecTexcept etc. However, these words and phrases are different slightly in meaning. Of course, it is not an easy job to understand and use

13、correctly all the above-mentioned words and phrases. We can only try to accomplish this goal by large amount of exercise.E.g. (8) Arbitration: All disputes in connection with this Contract or the execution thereof shall be amicably settled through negotiation. In case no settlement can be reached be

14、tween the two parties, the case under dispute shall be submitted to the Foreign Trade Arbitration Commission of the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) for arbitration. The arbitration shall take place in Beijing, China and shall be executed in accordance with the Provisio

15、nal Rules of Procedure of the said Commission and the decision made by the Arbitration Commission shall be accepted as final and binding upon both parties. The fees for arbitration shall be borne by the losing party unless otherwise awarded.仲裁：一切因執(zhí)行本合同所發(fā)生與本合同有關(guān)之爭執(zhí)，雙方應(yīng)友好協(xié)商解決。如 雙方協(xié)商不能解決時，此爭執(zhí)應(yīng)提交中國國際貿(mào)易促

16、進(jìn)委員會對外貿(mào)易仲裁委員 會，按照該仲裁委員會仲裁程序暫行規(guī)那么進(jìn)行仲裁。仲裁地點(diǎn)在中國北京。仲裁 委員會的裁決為終局裁決，對雙方均有約束力。仲裁費(fèi)用除仲裁委員會另有決定 外，均由敗訴一方承當(dāng)。(戚云方176)Other examples of easy-confusing expressions:E.g. (9) Shipping advice and shipping instructions(戚云方 175)shipping advice means 裝運(yùn)通知 which is sent by the seller to the buyer, while shipping instruc

17、tion means 裝運(yùn)須知 which is sent by the buyer to the seller.E.g. (10) “Abide by and comply with”(戚云方 175)“Abide by and comply with have the same meaning of 遵守.When the subject is a person, zzabide by should be used, and when the subject is not a person, comply with should be used.E.g. (11) “Before and

18、on or before”(戚云方 175)Shipment: To be shipped before April 8, 2012. (April 8 is not included.) Shipment: To be shipped on or before April 8, 2012. (April 8 is included.)“On or before means ”在某月某日之前which includes zzthat day”, if it does not include that day”before should be used.Eg (12) Upon and afte

19、r”The balance shall be settled upon the arrival of the goods at the port of destination.The version:貨到目的港后即行付清余款。(陳建平34)Upon means on or immediately and can be translated as .至U后，就.“ while “after cannot.4 Solutions to ProblemsSpeaking of inaccuracies of a translated contract, the point that masterin

20、g the criteria of translator and translation, should be taken with the aim for improving accuracies of a translation.Criteria for TranslatorTo make a better translation, translators should improve their basic qualitiesAs translation is a bilingual work, the translator has to know both English and Ch

21、inese well for doing translation work with accuracy. And it is difficult to translate the stipulations in the contract faithfully and accurately without any distortion of the contract terms. Therefore, it is far from enough to only have a solid foundation of English language knowledge in the contrac

22、t translating. In order to avoid the misunderstanding of the contract in translation and financial loss in real work, the translator should try every effort to get acquainted with the professional background knowledge well.Besides, a high sense of responsibility is also very necessary for a translat

23、or. When translating, if there is anything the translator doesnt know, one should always consult books or other persons for advices. With that little more effort, he may avoid many serious mistakes.Criteria for translationCriteria for translation text constitute the yardstick for measuring a piece o

24、f translated work. As to the translation of an English commercial contract, we tend to think of Yan Fu who advocated for the first time the three words as translation criteria, namely, faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. Yan Fus faithfulness means the full and complete conveying or transmissi

25、on of the original content or thought. His “expressiveness demands that the version must be clear and flowing without any grammatical mistakes or confused logic and sense. (qtd. in Guo Zhuzhang 23) But his elegance is inadaptable in translation of an English commercial contract, because Chinese must

26、 be used in order to represent the original fully and adequately. Hence, in my view, the common criteria applied in contract translation can be summarized in the following two words: faithfulness and smoothness.FaithfulnessIt is self-evident how important the faithfulness of the version to the origi

27、nal work is. Without faithfulness, there would be no translation to talk about. As I understand it, faithfulness first refers to the content of the original work. The translator must bring out the original meaning both comprehensively and accurately without any distortion or casual addition or delet

28、ion of the original thought.Faithfulness also includes the keeping of the original style, as Mr. Lu Xun point out, “keep the full flavor of the original work. During the process of translation, we should also abide by the correspondence of style between the original work and the version. A certain s

29、tyle serves a certain social function and a certain situation needs a certain style to be correspondent to it. Therefore, when translating, we should grasp the stylistic features of the original work and try to make it reflected in the version. Only when there is a correspondence between style and s

30、ituation, may the version afford a better understanding and serve a better social function.Smoothness“Smoothness requires that version must be clear and distinct, flowing and easy to read without signs of the mechanical word-for-word translation, of obscure and crabbed language. In other words, the

31、translation text should be readable. Readability includes grammaticality, idiomatic ness, stylistic adaptability, clarity and organization.However, sometimes there are contradictions between faithfulness and smoothness, but the translator must try his best to arrive at the unity of the contradiction

32、s.ConclusionFrom our life experience, we have known that contract is very important to anyone of the business, and translator, the one who takes a special position in the process of business, must pay close attention to the skills of translation. As stated in Part One, due to lack of professional kn

33、owledge such as trade, insurance, contract law and other commercial laws, many translators did really poor during the process of commercial contract translation.Successful translation of the original contract means a lot to a translator. The second part has illustrated that obligations and rights of

34、 the parties concerned in a contract should be clear and specific and should avoid any ambiguity and vagueness, the words and sentences used in a contract are formal and rigorous. A translated contract also observes the established forms and expressions to confirm the stability and clearness.Accordi

35、ng to what have been analyzed above, the translator should abide by the established tradition when translating a contract, and also improve his basic qualities for making the translated contract meet the criteria of translation.The translation of the contract is employed in high demand indeed, and t

36、o have a good contract translation cannot be achieved hurriedly as this translating task is time-consuming and it needs extensive accumulation of knowledge, clear thinking and serious piece of work attitude.動中常出現(xiàn)的合同問題，作出合理分析，并提出可以有效處理這些問題 的解決方法。二、研究的基本內(nèi)容，擬解決的主要問題：本文介紹有關(guān)合同的基本知識和概念，強(qiáng)調(diào)合同翻譯的重要性。旨在分 析出現(xiàn)在

37、合同翻譯中錯誤，并提出相應(yīng)的解決方法。本文主要提到了術(shù) 語錯誤和其它普通錯誤。探討國際法律體系的區(qū)別、不同的文化背景, 譯者的法學(xué)素養(yǎng)和資質(zhì)、以及合同中常出現(xiàn)的容易混淆和誤解的詞句表 達(dá)等因素對商貿(mào)合同的翻譯所帶來的影響。本文還提出了可以減少這些 錯誤發(fā)生的有效方法。三、研究的步驟方法:1.研究步驟：首先閱讀有關(guān)合同翻譯的文獻(xiàn)及資料，了解國內(nèi)外有關(guān)合同翻譯的研究。把握其研究方向。先介紹商貿(mào)合同的概念和分類，然后說明商貿(mào)活動中 合同翻譯的重要性。其次，在真實(shí)合同范本中找出合同翻譯過程中常出 現(xiàn)的錯誤和失誤。再次，由此引出出現(xiàn)這些錯誤和失誤的原因，著重分 析、闡述產(chǎn)生這些錯誤的原因。最后，重點(diǎn)分析

38、并找出可以有效減少這 些錯誤的方法。With Chinas deepening reform and opening-up policy and Chinas entry into the Word Trade Organization, its foreign trade gets more touch with the Euro-American economy. Commercial contract plays a very important role in this process and has its own characteristics: specialization, p

39、resentation and standardization. The translation of commercial contract bears a close relationship to the development and the prosperity of economy. Accuracy is vital for a foreign economic and trade contract. Inaccuracies of a translation text may lead to ambiguity and uncertainty in diction of a c

40、ontract, which may be taken as a pretext by the merchants in bad faith to deliberately evade their obligations and liabilities, even commit business fraud. Hence, with the aim for great accuracy of a translation text, this thesis will focus on analyzing factors that influence the translation of Engl

41、ish commercial contract.This thesis can be divided into four parts. First, it states the definition and classification of the contract. In the second and third part, this thesis points out some mistakes in the translation of English commercial contracts with examples, and then refers to the factors

42、that influence the translation of English commercial contract. In the last part, it tries to give some advice of solving the problems.隨著我國改革開放的進(jìn)一步深入和經(jīng)濟(jì)的快速開展，以及我國加入世界貿(mào)易組織, 我國的對外貿(mào)易與歐美國家的經(jīng)濟(jì)聯(lián)系加強(qiáng)。在國際經(jīng)濟(jì)貿(mào)易活動中，商貿(mào)合同 起著非常重要的作用，且具有自身的特點(diǎn)，即專業(yè)化、條理化和規(guī)范化。商貿(mào)合 同對翻譯的質(zhì)量提出了很高的要求，也增加了對翻譯的難度。準(zhǔn)確性是對英語商 貿(mào)合同翻譯的基本要求。譯文準(zhǔn)確對涉外經(jīng)貿(mào)合

43、同具有特殊意義。譯文失真會導(dǎo) 致合同措詞的模糊性和不確定性，進(jìn)而被不法商人故意利用以逃避責(zé)任和義務(wù)， 甚至進(jìn)行商業(yè)欺詐。為此，本文從商貿(mào)合同翻譯的重要性出發(fā)，分析商貿(mào)合同翻 譯中一些常見譯文失真的問題，進(jìn)一步探討影響英語商貿(mào)合同翻譯的因素，以期 提高英語商貿(mào)合同翻譯的準(zhǔn)確性。本文可分為四局部。第一局部介紹合同的定義 和分類，第二和第三局部列舉了合同翻譯中一些常見的錯誤，并分析影響英語商 貿(mào)合同翻譯的主要因素。在最后一局部試提出比擬有效的解決方法。IntroductionForeign economic contracts play a more and more important role

44、in the foreign trade. However, the translation of English commercial contracts in China is far from satisfactory, which is one of the reasons for me to choose it as the topic of my thesis. Actually, many people have studied the translation of English commercial contract, such as Chen Jianping and Ya

45、ng Yiqiu. They have discussed the stylistic features of contract English by analyzing parts of speech, lexical and sentence structure adopted in contract English.Translating English commercial contract is a hard job. The translator should not only have a thorough understanding of the content of the

46、original contract, but also have a good command both of the source language and the target language. That is really a challenge for translators. English commercial contracts contain specialized knowledge, such as trade, insurance, transportation, finance and so forth. In order to make a good transla

47、tion of English commercial contracts, the translator should have a good knowledge of contract law, commercial law and basic knowledge of law. The translator also has to be familiar with common legal terminologies and conditions in English commercial contracts.Besides, in order to have an accurate tr

48、anslation of an English commercial contract, the translation must follow the basic translating criteria that are Yan Fus “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance. Compared with others, in my opinion, “faithfulness and smoothness are more important and practical. According to the criteria of transl

49、ation and translator, my thesis mainly analyzes what factors influence the translation of English commercial contract. With the aim for improving the accuracy of a translation of English commercial contract, in the end, it would also give some suggestions to readers.General Consideration on Contract

50、International contracts play a very important role in our daily life. To business men, contract means not only the legal obligation but also the legal rights which results from the parties agreement. And accuracy is vital for a commercial contract.Inaccuracies of a translation text may lead to pecun

51、iary loss. Hence, the translation of commercial contract plays a very import role in the foreign trade.Commercial contracts may be concerned with many specialized field, such as trade, finance, insurance, transportation and so forth.When translating, we should pay more attention to them.At first, we

52、 should find out what a contract is.Definition of a ContractDifferent national contract laws to the contract have different definitions. In the Contract Law of the Peoples Republic of China, a contract is defined as an agreement between natural persons, legal persons or other organizations with equa

53、l standing, for the purpose of establishing, altering, or discharging a relationship of civil rights and obligations. An agreement concerning any personal relationship such as marriage, adoption, guardianship, etc., shall be governed by other applicable laws.”But In the American Contract Law, a cont

54、ract is defined as a promise or a set of promises for the breach of which the law gives a remedy, or the performance of which the law in some way recognizes as a duty.”Then cant we define a contract more clearly and explicitly?A simple definition of a contract is an agreement that is enforceable or

55、binding. A more complete definition of a contract is a promise or a set of promises for which the law will provide a remedy in the event of a breach.(袁傳有 20)To avoid uncertainty, the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) uniformizes the rules of performing

56、 contracts. CISG has been in force since 1988. It establishes a comprehensive code of legal rules governing the formation of contracts for the international sale of goods as well as the obligation of the buyer and seller, remedies for breach of contract, and other aspects of the contract between art

57、ies located in the countries that have adopted this agreement.Classification of ContractsAccording to different criterion, contracts can be classified into various categories. And if we classify contracts in accordance with their content, contracts may fall into many categories, such as publication

58、contract, sales and purchase contract, distribution contract, copyright assignment contract, and so forth.In the Contract Law of the People/s Republic of China, contracts fall into two categories: written and oral. This classification is made in accordance with the formality of a contract.At the sam

59、e time, business English translation of the contents of the contract covers widely. Especially now, in the circumstance of the global economic integration, foreign business dealings have become increasingly frequent, these business dealings will inevitably involve trade contracts. To this end, the t

60、ranslation of the contract as an essential link has become increasingly important. These foreign economic contracts classified according to their nature and content can be broadly divided into the following categories:Commodity category. Common foreign goods sales contracts, contracts for the sale o