Exploring into the Strategies of Chinese-English Business Translation
Vigorous world economy and economic globalization have drawn our attention to English for Special Purpose (ESP). Being the bridge of international exchange, English for International Economics and Trade now enjoys increasing popularity on the international stage. Since China plays a more and more important role in the world economy world, there emerges a great opportunity for translation companies in China in the area of business English translation.
However, as a tool for transnational commercial affairs exchanges, business English has been encountering a conflict in translation between the supply of and demand for qualified translated materials. On one hand, translators in all fields have their hands full because of the gradual expansion of international exchange and cooperation as well as more onerous tasks involved in C-E or E-C business translation; on the other hand, by means of some modern media such as e-commerce and Internet to be used in maintaining international business relation, translators are requested to provide commercial information quickly, so they don’t have much time to make serious consideration on wording. It is pressing for professional translators in China to understand the way of putting the business English into appropriate Chinese. And it is also of great importance for business English translation in China to catch up with international standard.
Our company, Transhorsa Translation Co., Ltd, when dealing with business English translation, always sticks to two principles. One is to adopt the way of domestication translation; the other is to strengthen the proficiency of translators in Chinese language.
Domesticating translation and Foreignizing translation, a pair of concept first used by Lawrence Venuti, an American deconstructionist translation theorist, are two terms applied in translation to describe two different translation strategies. Domestication is a TL-oriented translation method, while foreignzition is a SL-oriented translation method. Why does domesticating translation take the preponderant status in business English translation?
Firstly, the first and most important purpose of business translation is to transfer information. More attention should be paid to the apprehension and acceptability of target readers and consider how translation excises its due functions effectively and reach the purpose of the source text. The form and content of original text should serve the translated text and its communicative function.
Moreover, according to Newmark’s classification, business texts are impressive or vocative. Translation consists in the receptor language reproduction based on the message of the source language in such a way that receptors of receptor language may be able to understand adequately how the original receptors of the source language understand the original message. (Eugene A. Nida) From our point of view, American Linguist Nida’s dynamic equivalence is the real target that the translators in business English translation pursue. It stresses that the target language receptors could get the same effect as the source receptors do, which is also its purpose: the Chinese businessmen can understand what their counterparts mean. Therefore, the semantic and stylistic equivalences are highly required.
As to the translators, a conscientious and qualified translator shall possess bilingual competence. Since translation is an art between two languages, a translator should be an artist and a master of Chinese language. That also gives an unavoidable mission to the company. A company who wants to promote its reputation and business should attach more importance to training its translators. Our company invites senior translators, university professors and experts in various fields to give lectures to our translators aperiodically on computer skills, terminology searching and idiomatic expressions, etc. Recently, we are going to have a lecture on Chinese linguistics, aiming to improve translators’ Chinese competence.
In a word, business English is taking more and more important roles in our economic life, while the E-C translation cannot catch up with the international standard. In this paper, we put forward two means to solve the problem, one is to use the translation strategy of domestication and the other is to train our translators’ bilingual competence. Armed with these two weapons, we think we can do better in the field of business English translation and go further in the business translation world.
