A Study of Translation Strategies of Foreign Trade Contracts from the Intercultural Perspective

Abstract

With the steady advancement of China’s “One Belt, One Road” strategy, China’s foreign trade business activities have become more frequent, and the number of transactions reached has increased. In a transaction, the importance of a foreign trade contract is unparalleled which is directly related to the economic interests of the parties. Due to the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, the accurate translation of foreign trade contracts meets some challenges. Based on this, it is necessary to analyze the translation of foreign trade contracts from the intercultural perspective. Firstly, the paper summarizes the intercultural communication and foreign trade contracts, and then points out some problems in the translation of foreign trade contracts. Finally, on the basis of analyzing the language characteristics of foreign trade contracts and the differences between Chinese and Western cultures, this paper proposes some translation strategies for foreign trade contracts from the intercultural perspective. Keywords—foreign trade contract translation; translation strategies; intercultural communication I. OVERVIEW OF MULTICULTURAL COMMUNICATION AND FOREIGN TRADE CONTRACT TRANSLATION Any kind of across nationalities, countries or groups can be classified as intercultural communication [1], so as translation activities. The essence of the translation of foreign trade contracts is to convert the contract text under a cultural control to the contract text under the influence of another culture on the basis of retaining the original meaning. In the translation process of foreign trade contracts, translators do not only shuttle between two different languages, but more often communicate with two different cultures. Because different countries and ethnic groups have differences in historical traditions, development processes, customs and ways of thinking [4], it is extremely difficult to accurately express the contents of the contract text in an appropriate way on the basis of retaining the original meaning. This process not only takes care of the differences between the two cultures, but also ensures that the translation will not be distorted, thus affecting normal international business dealings. II. PROBLEMS IN THE TRANSLATION OF FOREIGN TRADE CONTRACTS A. Misinterpretation of the Original Text of the Foreign Contract In the translation of legal provisions of foreign trade contracts, the original text of the foreign contract is frequently misinterpreted. In order to clearly define the rights and obligations of both parties to the transaction, the legal provisions of foreign trade contracts will be elaborated. In English, the sentences are relatively long, and a large number of complex sentences and long sentences are used the foreign contract. These long sentences generally contain clauses, clause phrases, etc., which create certain difficulties for understanding and translation. In this case, if the translator’s international trade knowledge is not rich enough and the English level is not high enough, it is easy to misinterpret the original text. B. Misinterpreting the Grammatical Structure of the Contract The legal clauses in foreign trade contracts are often the most complicated grammatical structure, and at the same time the barriers to translation. Some mistranslations often stem from misunderstanding of the grammatical structure of the original text. For example, the original text in a contract is as follows: “For the avoidance of doubt, the Non-Defaulting Party shall have the right, in its discretion, to notify the Defaulting Party of the Early Termination Date at any time prior to an Event of Default being cured, notwithstanding the fact that the NonDefaulting Party exercised the rights under clause 18.2 (ii) or 18.2 (iii).” When translating the clause, “terminating” is easily translated as “suspended”, and the sentence has more limited structure, and it is easy to distinguish the order before or after losing one or several qualifiers so as to change the original meaning of the contract. C. Unfamiliarity with Foreign Trade Contracts and International Trade Expertise For example, in a contract clause, the original text is as follows: 3rd International Seminar on Education Innovation and Economic Management (SEIEM 2018) Copyright © 2019, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Advances in Social Science, Education and Humanities Research, volume 286