语域理论和图式理论在商务英语翻译中的应用

1、中文摘要 随着全球一体化趋势日益加快，跨国商务活动日益频繁，作为沟通国际间交流的语言工具，商务英语已成为一门非常流行的专门用途英语。因此对商务英语翻译的要求也随之提高。但是与此相反的是在翻译研究中，商务英语翻译并未得到相应的重视，翻译的质量随之大打折扣。一些文学翻译理论家及翻译家甚至认为商务翻译不登大雅之堂，其翻译过程只是简单的直译，无需翻译理论的指导也没有什么翻译技巧可言，只要有双语能力及相关背景知识的人都可作好商务翻译。对于这种现实需求与理论研究相脱离的矛盾现象，笔者试图根据商务英语有别于普通英语的具体特点，从语言学和心理学的角度来看语域理论和图式理论在商务英语翻译中的应用来说明商务翻译的

2、复杂性以提高商务翻译的学术地位。 本论文共分为五个部分。第一章引言部分阐述了商务英语翻译的重要性，它在国内外目前的研究状况和本文的要点。 第二章为本文的理论基础，介绍了英国语言学家Halliday提出的语域理论和德国哲学家Kant提出的图式概念。语域理论是系统功能语法的重要理论，描写语言随着使用情景和场合的变化而变化，语域共分为三个部分:语场，语旨。语式。图式理论认为，一切新的信息只有在与己有的认识或知识建立某种联系时才有意义，强调背景知识在语言理解中的作用，共有三种图式:语言图式，内容图式，结构图式。笔者将语言学方面的语域理论和心理认知学方面的图式理论结合起来，从语言学和认知学上共同指导商务

3、英语翻译。 第三章从词汇、句法，语篇和社会四个角度详细的分析了商务英语的特点。从词汇方面看，商务英语具有专业词汇，缩略语和合成词多以及大量借用古词语和外来词语的特点;从句法层面上看，长句突出，陈述句为主以及众多套语和套句;从语篇层次上看，格式固定，语言正规简洁，风格准确严谨，语气庄重礼貌;而目的性，信息性和文化背景是商务英语从社会角度看的鲜明特征。 第四章是本文的实践部分，涉及到理论与商务英语具体特点的结合。本章首先根据商务英语区别于普通英语的显著特点，提出了三个商务英语翻译的基本原则，即忠实，准确，简洁。然后在语域理论和图式理论的指导下，结合商务英语的具体特点，并结合大量的实例，进一步提出了

4、做好商务英语翻译的五大步骤。指出翻译者只有在自己己知的语言，内容和结构图式的基础上准确的体现出商务活动的语场，语旨和语式，翻译出来的才是一篇成功而完美的文章。 第五章结语部分总结了本文的内容，并简要说明商务翻译者应I I.,务的条件。关键词:语域理论，图式理论，商务英语特点，商务英语翻译原则，IfJ务英语翻译步骤Abstract With the increasing trend of globalization, the international business cooperationis highly frequent. As a tool of international commu

5、nication, business English hasalready become a kind of ESP (English for Special Purpose). Therefore, businessEnglish translation is highly demanded. However, on the other hand, the study ofBusiness English Translation is somewhat neglected and consequently its quality isundesirable. Some translation

6、 theorists have prejudice against business translation andregard it as something that does not appeal to refined taste and can hardly matchliterary translation. The texts of this kind are thought of as simple and stereotyped,and it is believed that anyone who is bilingual and has some knowledge ofin

7、ternational business can do the translation. In order to rebut the bias between thepractical demand and theoretical research, the author of this thesis tries to prove thecomplexity of Business English Translation and heighten its academic position byapplying Register and Schema Theory into Business

8、English Translation on the basisof the features of Business English in contrast with Common English. The explorationis conducted from the aspects of Linguistics and Psychology. The thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one is the introduction mainly explaining the significance of businessEnglish

9、 translation, the current studies of business English translation at home andabroad and the overview of the thesis. As the theoretic basis of the thesis, chapter two introduces the Register Theoryput forward by the linguist Halliday and the Schema Theory first brought forward bythe German philosophe

10、r Kant. Register Theory is the important theory in SystematicFunctional Grammar, it means that Language varies according to the background andsituation in which it is used, and these varieties of language can be referred to asregisters. The register has three categories: field, tenor and mode. Schem

11、a Theorybelieves that peoples understanding of the input information is based on whether theyhave relative background knowledge before, and it emphasizes the role of the priorknowledge in the understanding of language. There are three kinds of schema:language schema, content schema and structure sch

12、ema. The author of the thesiscombines the Register Theory in Linguistics and the Schema Theory in cognition to tackle Business English Translation from the linguistic and cognitive basis. Chapter three touches detailedly on the characteristics of business English fromfour aspects: lexical level, syn

13、tactic level, textual level and social level. From thelexical aspect, business English is featured by technical vocabulary, abundantabbreviations and compounds, plenty of archaisms and loanwords; in the syntacticlevel, there are three features: prominence of long sentences, frequent use ofdeclarativ

14、e sentences and a large number of sentences with fixed expressions; in thetextual phase, there are four features: settled pattern, formal and brief language,accurate and strict style, polite tone; finally socially, business English is featured byits sense of purpose, informativeness and cultural bac

15、kground. In chapter four, which is practical part of the thesis, the two theories described inchapter two are combined with the specific characteristics of business English. First,three basic principles for business translation are presented in this chapter on the basisof the distinct features of bu

16、siness English, that is, faithfulness, accuracy andconciseness. Then according to Register theory and Schema theory, together with thefeatures of business English, five processes for a better business English translationare put forward in the final part of this chapter. The author believes that as l

17、ong as thetranslator can reflect accurately the field, tenor and mode in business activities on thebasis of his language, content and structure schema in his memory, business Englishtranslation could be done successfully and perfectly. Chapter five is the conclusion summarizing the whole thesis and

18、suggests somerequirements for the business translators.Key Words: Register Theory, Schema Theory, Features of Business English, Principles for Business English Translation, Processes for Business English Translation Contents中文摘要.“”二”.”“二”.”“.”二”. IAbstract.“.”“.“.”.”.”“二”二“.IIContents.”“”“.”二“.IVCha

19、pter One Introduction .“”.”.”.”.“.“”“”“”.”.“”.“”.”.1 1.1 Significance of Business English Translation.1 1.2 Current Studies of Business English Translation at Home and Abroad. 2 1.3 Overview of this Paper.3Chapter Two Register&Schema Theory and Business English Translation .5 2.1 Register Theory.5 2

20、.1.1 Definition of Register.5 2.1.2 Types of Register.6 2.2 Schema Theory.11 2.2.1 Definition of Schema.11 2.2.2 Types of Schema.12Chapter Three Features of Business English .”“”“”.”.”“.”.“.”.一16 3.1 Lexical Level.。.16 3.1.1 Technical Terms.16 3.1.2 Abbreviations.17 3.1.3 Compounds.18 3.1.4 Archaism

21、s.18 3.1.5 Loanwords .。.19 3.2 Syntactic Level.19 3.2.1 Fixed Expressions.19 3.2.2 Long Sentences.20 3.2.3 Declarative Sentences.2! 3.3 Textual Level.22 3.3.1 Settled Pattern.22 3.3.2 Formal and Brief Language.23 3.3.3 Accurate and Strict Style. 24 3.3.4 Polite Tone.25 3.4 Social Level.26 3.4.1 Sens

22、e of Purpose.26 3.4.2 Informativeness. 26 3.4.3 Cultural background .，.27Chapter Four Principles and Processes for Business English Translation .28 4.1 Basic Principles for Business English Translation .。.。.28 4.1.1 Faithfulness.28 4.1.2 Accuracy.29 4.1.3 Conciseness.32 4.2 General Processes for Bet

23、ter Business English Translation .32 4.2.1 Memorizing Technical Terms and Fixed Expressions.33 4.2.2 Familiarizing the Background Knowledge.35 4.2.3 Analyzing Sentence Structure Carefully. 36 4.2.4 Choosing Appropriate Text Style. 37 4.2.5 Pursuing the Closeness of Tone Features.。.38Chapter Five Con

24、clusion.“一41Bibliography.一”.”“.”.“ .”.”.“”.”.一43Acknowledgements .”一”.“.“.”.“”一46Chapter One Introduction1.1 Significance of Business English 1ranslation With the increasingly widening business relationship between China and theworld, Business English Translation is becoming an inevitable part in th

25、e commercialactivities. However, with a look at the current situation of business English translation,many problems do exist in the understanding and expressing. Whats more, therehasnt been a systematic theory for business English translation so far. Therefore, thisthesis has a great social and theo

26、retical significance. First, as a kind of English for special purpose, business English attracts more andmore attention in this world of economic globalization. Not all businessmen, at leastfor now and in the foreseeable future, are competent to directly communicate inEnglish with their counterparts

27、. And non-businessmen, such as decision-makers ofgovernment or internal business organizations, need translated business documents toreview. Whats more, legal issues, especially business litigations, have to be processedin the national language of the party involved. In a word, business translation

28、has itsreasons of existence in the modern world and in the era of globalization. Second, Business English translation has been attracting the academic attentionin recent years on the one hand, but in general, the attention has been concentrated indetailed techniques and empirical or functional uses.

29、 There are few systematictranslation theories to guide business translation in practice. On the other hand,translation theory itself mainly takes literature translation as its resources and the areaof applications, with business translation at the peripheral. No doubt, translationtheory should draw

30、its strength from studies of various forms of translation to makegenerality, but in reality it forms its framework mainly from the perspectives ofliterature translation or so-called serious translations, such as classic works (Bibles,etc.) or serious Literature translations. In a way, business Engli

31、sh translation canprovide a very fertile ground for translation theory to cultivate. Business English hassome special features that the general English does not have. It follows someformalities and uses some jargons that are not commonly practiced or used outside business. In this sense, it is neces

32、sary to initiate the research of theoretical business English translation, for theory as well as for the improvement and promotion ofbusiness English translation.1.2 Current Studies of Business English Translation at Home and Abroad From ancient to now, there are abundant fruits in translation resea

33、rch in China,for instance, Yan Fus faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance, which gained popularinfluence in China, Lu Xuns Rather be faithful than smooth. However, what almostall the fruits focus on is literary translation and all the efforts are made to renderperfect literary translation and ach

34、ieve the harmony between the form and the contentof literary translation. Though translation gets its appropriate treatment as anacademic pursuit in China for a long history, it is not true of business translation. Thetraditional Chinese translation theories lay too much emphasis on literary transla

35、tion,which results in great limitation. Particularly for business translation, whose featuresare greatly different from those of literary translation, traditional translation theory isnot so suitable. However, business translation has for a long time remained only apractical pursuit and been ignored

36、 by Chinese academic field. It is only recently that ithas become the focus of attention. Up to now, there are not as many books or thesesstudying business translation as those that concern other kinds of translations in China,though there is rapid development in this area. But there are still many

37、famousscholars who have made tremendous contributions to business translation in recentyears. However, there are few books that offer systematic researches and concentrateon business translation and few theories are applied in business translation;consequently, the systematic research on business tr

38、anslation and its suitable theoriesis urgent in China. Foreign researches on business English are restricted on the language featuresand/or teaching methodology instead of business English translation. A good exampleis the book Teaching Business English co- authored by Ellis and Johnson, who told us

39、that business English has three general characteristics, namely, sense of purpose,social aspects and clear communication. The present fact is that a great manyresearches have been done on business English translation, but the focus has been onthe skills of how to translate the terminologies, long se

40、ntences with adverbial andattributive clauses in contracts or business English letters, etc. they are not done sosystematically and completely. 1.3 Overview of this Paper For the existing social and theoretical problems in business English translation,this thesis is a study of Business English Trans

41、lation from the perspective of Schemaand Register Theory. The thesis is divided into five parts with the introduction andconclusion. To begin with, the writer discusses the significance of business Englishtranslation, the current studies of business English translation at home and abroad andmakes a

42、brief introduction to the whole content. Chapter two is to introduce Register Theory put forward by linguist Halliday andSchema Theory first brought forward by German philosopher Kant in detail. It willillustrate what the contents of the two theories are, and why they can be applied tobusiness Engli

43、sh translation. At the same time, a comparison will be made betweenRegister theory and Schema theory, and a conclusion will be made that the twotheories can be combined together to instruct Business English Translation on thelinguistic and cognitive basis. Chapter three is devoted to a brief discuss

44、ion of business English. Under thistopic, it mainly focuses on the specific features of business English from four aspects:lexical level, syntactic level, textual level and social level. At lexical aspect, businessEnglish is featured by technical vocabulary, abundant abbreviations and compounds,plen

45、ty of archaisms and loanwords; as to syntactic level, there are three features:prominence of long sentences, frequent use of declarative sentences and a largenumber of sentences with fixed expressions; from the textual aspect, there are fourfeatures: settled pattern, formal and brief language, accur

46、ate and strict style, politetone; finally in the social level, business English is featured by its sense of purpose,informativeness and cultural background. In chapter four, the basic principles and general processes for a better businessEnglish translation are analyzed based on the combination of t

47、wo theories and thedistinct features of business English. Three basic principles of business translation arepresented first in this chapter, that is, faithfulness, accuracy and conciseness. Withrespect to the processes for a better business English translation, there are fiveprocesses in general, th

48、at is: memorizing technical terms and fixed expressions,familiarizing the background knowledge, analyzing sentence structure carefully,choosing appropriate text style and pursuing the closeness of the tone features, whichcan make business English translation more effectively and accurately. The conc

49、lusion summarizes the whole thesis and suggests some requirements forthe business translators.Chapter Two Register&Schema Theory and Business English Translation A great number of researches on Register and Schema theory have beenconducted, but they are mostly for English teaching. While the number

50、of researchesinvolved in Business English Translation is quite small. In this chapter, the authorconducted a research on the two theories, and its objective is to study the combinedapplications of the two theories on business English translation and try to find someenlightenment for business English

51、 translation.2.1 Register Theory Register Theory is the important theory in Systematic Functional Grammar.Systemic functional grammar is the most well-known component of a broad socialsemiotic approach to language called Systemic-functional linguistics, originallyarticulated by Michael A.K. Halliday

52、 in the 1960s. Systemic-functional grammar isconcerned primarily with the choices that are made available to speakers of alanguage by their grammatical systems. These choices are assumed to be meaningfuland relate speakers intentions to concrete forms of a language. Meanings aretypically divided int

53、o three broad areas, called metafunctions: the ideational, grammarfor representing the world; the interpersonal, grammar for enacting socialrelationships (asking, asserting, and ordering, etc); and the textual, grammar forbinding linguistic elements together into broader texts. The concept of regist

54、er was first put forward by Reid in 1956, and then Hallidayand someone else made a further study on register. A point that should be noticed isthat, instead of guiding the translation practice, Halliday developed the register theoryto find the general rule of language varieties. However, the registe

55、r theory has a closerelationship with business English translation. Therefore, the author combined theregister theory with business English translation to get some enlightenment.2.1.1 Definition of Register Language is always used for certain communicative purposes on differentoccasions. In order to

56、 cater for the different communicative needs, we have a lot of language varieties, which form the category of register. The term register was firstused in this sense, that of text variety, by Reid(1956); the concept was taken up anddeveloped by Jean Ure (Ure and Ellis 1972), and interpreted within H

57、ills (1958)institutional linguistic framework by Halliday (1964). The register is the semanticvariety of which a text may be regarded as an instance. When people use language to express meanings, they do so in specific situations,and the form of the language that they use is influenced by the comple

58、x elements ofthose situations. Situation also affects the expression of meaning in written English.Types of linguistic situation differ from one another, broadly speaking, in threerespects: first, what is actually taking place; secondly, who is taking part; and thirdly,what part the langue is playin

59、g. These three variables, taken together, determine therange within which meanings are selected and the forms which are used for theirexpression. In other words, they determine the register. Register refers to the fact that the language we speak or write varies according tothe type of situation. Thi

60、s in itself is no more than stating the obvious. What thetheory of register does is to attempt to uncover the general principles which governthis variation, so that we can begin to understand what situational factors determinewhat linguistic features. It is a fundamental property of all languages th