功能翻译理论视角下企业简介英译策略的探析

Introduction
Corporate profile is the written text to build the image of the enterprise, by using some vivid words to show their plentiful achievements、reflex their unique culture connotation and establish a communication platform. The main function of corporate profile provides information and sets a good enterprise image, and achieves the business aim of attracting consumers and cooperative partners. Nowadays, the global economic integration makes the economic trade escalation in the world.
Consequently, for China’s enterprises, it’s no doubt that a high quality English profile will become important mediums which make enterprises have a foothold in the international market, promote the information communication, knowledge innovation and regional competitiveness between domestic and foreign enterprises.
The current situation of Chinese corporate profiles translation is not very good, the problems can be roughly summed up as two kinds: the first is called “trauma” (or called “bruising”), which is a slight problem; it usually appears in the small firms C-E translation. It includes three aspects: printing or spelling errors、wording and collocation errors、grammar errors; The second is called “internal injury”, there are no errors of words and grammar, but the foreign readers can’t understand what the profile wants to express. These problems are mainly caused by the translators, because they don’t consider the readers and target language customs, they are controlled by source text and copy everything indiscriminately and transplant mechanically. (Chen gang, 2004)
The Skopostheorie of German functionalism school can give a great direction to practical text’s translation. This article, directed by the Skopostheorie, takes Zhangzhou enterprises’ C-E corporate profiles as template, analyzes the text function of corporate profiles and the differences between C-E corporate profiles, and finally, puts forward the Chinese corporate profiles translation strategies.
Chapter one German functionalist translation theory—Skopostheorie
This part generally introduces the German functionalist translation theory and summarizes of Skopostheorie. It is the most important theory in corporate profiles C-E translation, and it can help translators find suitable ways to make a good translation text. In the introduction of this part, the readers will know more about German functionalist translation theory and find out the correct ways to translate Chinese corporate profiles.
1.1 German functionalist translation theory
German functionalist translation theory, which began in 1970s. It was put forward by some scholars, such as Kantharina Reiss、Hans Vermeer、Justa Holz Mantari and Christiane Nord and so on. It came into being roughly by four steps, and the most milestones theories were Reiss’s functional category of translation criticism, Vermeer’s Skopostheorie and beyond, Mantari’s theory of translation action and Nord’s function plus loyalty.
Kantharina Reiss published Possibilities and Limitations in Translation Criticism in 1971, and the book puts forward the functional approach at first, it leads “function type” into translation theory, and puts out the functional criticism mode based on the original and translation text. She thought that the perfect translation of target language translation and original discourse is achieving equivalence in the thought contents, language form and communication function and so on. Generally speaking, Reiss’ theory bases on equivalence theory, and the essence of her theory is finding the functional equivalence between the target language and original language.
And then, Hans Vermeer broke through the limitation of the equal theory which Reiss obeyed, and created the foundation theory——Skopostheorie. The core concept of Skopostheorie is that the translation ways and translation strategies are decided by the target or function of translation text prospective aims. Vermeer pointed out that “translation is a human activity”, and “every kind of activity has it’s aim”, “translation is a purpose activity”. So translation is an article which was born for some aims and receivers in target language situation. After that, another translation theorist Justa Holz Mantari developed Vermeer’s Skopostheorie, and pointed out “translation is a complex action which used in getting special aims”, [1] and emphasized the actions in the process of translation, the role of participant and the environment of the process of translation. Mantari’s translation theory covered all transcultural form, the word “translation” in Mantari’s translation theory has far away from traditional means. She put forward that the difference between “translation” and “translational action”. Translational action means that the information transfer process which is help to design the transfer of transcultural and cross-linguistic; But translation is only the text form transfer action of trans-culture, translation is the concrete operation of translational action. So functionalist translation theory uses a new perspective to interpret the translational action, and let the translation escape from the original language’s tie.
Finally, Christiane Nord developed the first generation Skopostheorie. She reorganized the idea of functionalist translation theory in English and expounded the complex theory and terms of functionalist for the first time. Nord published the Purposive Behavior in 1997, which completely neatened all sorts of ideology in functionalist translation theory, and explained all criticisms since functionalist translation theory produced, and answered those criticisms in detail. Besides, she also put forward the function plus loyalty as the supplement of Skopostheorie. “The function plus loyalty” asked the translator has responsible for all participator, and tries his best to coordinate the participator’s relationship. From then on, “Skopostheorie” expounds the translational action in a new perspective, and brings a new revolution to translational field.
1.2 Skopostheorie
Skopostheorie was put forward in the book General Foundations of Translation Theory which was the German functional school co-author with Kantharina Reiss. It mainly pointed to translation’s communication aim. According to Skopostheorie, the most important factor in translation process was the whole translation action’s purpose, translation text’s expectation or the strategies and ways decided by practical function. In this theory frame, the most important factor which decided the translational purpose was the prospective readers of translation text. Because there are some differences between the original and the translation, such as cultural background、mode of thinking、the expects to translation and communication purpose and so on. The translator should stand in the perspective of the translation readers and make the strategies according to the expected aims or functions. [1]
Besides, the translation principles of functionalism are general principles and special principles. The functionalism thought that Skopos rule and loyalty principle are the most important criterion in the process of translating, and others are depend by the text. The first one is Skopos rule, which is the most important theory in Vermeer’s theories. According to Skopostheorie, all translational action should obey the Skopos rule at first, and the translational actions are the process which decided by the translation aim, it also means that the result decides the methods.
The second one is loyalty principle —— the translator should be responsible for other participants when they are translating. It means that when there are benefit conflicts among the initiators, target language readers and the original writer, the translator must help them solve the problems and reach an agreement. The loyalty principle belong to Skopos rule, and it can avoid the translator’s random translation, help to balance the benefit among the initiators, target language readers and the original writer.
The Skopostheorie breaks up the limit of matching translational theory, puts forward the diversified translation theory system led by the Skopos rule, it was operability and wide range of application, breaking the limit of traditional translation theory which only concerned about the original writer、translator and the reader. It puts the importance on translation create instead of the loyalty to the original, and emphasizes that the initiative and participation of translator; overthrowing the central status of the original. Fang mengzhi、Mao zhongming considered confirmatory Skopostheorie with practical writing’s translation, and it could solve a lot of problems in practical writing’s translation.[3] Jia wenbo also pointed out that the importance of Skopostheorie in practical writing’s translation was obvious; it not only indicated the direction for pragmatic translation on macroscopic strategies, but also provided feasible ways for translators to translate different types of writing. [4]
Chapter two The existing C-E translation problems in corporate profiles
Nowadays, there are a lot of problems in C-E corporate profiles translation, and in the next part, this article stresses on these problems and points out some strategies to change this phenomenon. This part will enumerate some problems in four aspects: vocabulary, sentence structure, cultural differences and the errors of pragmatics translation; and then, make some analyses in the four aspects, based on some corporate profiles from Zhangzhou’s enterprises. Hoping that the thesis can make the translators pay more attention on these aspects, trying to make fewer errors or make correct English corporate profiles.
2.1 Vocabulary
There exists obvious verbal errors in some enterprises’ corporate profiles. For example, it shows in an enterprise’s English corporate profile,
“And now it’s a subsidiary of Fujian Longxi Bearing (Group) Co.,Ltd(Stock Code: SH600592),and the total assets of Copmany are nearly 500 million RMB.” (http://www.ls.com.cn/)
The initial letter in the word “Copmany” should be minuscule, but the spelling was wrong too, the right spelling should be “company”. For another example, there is a sentence in one enterprise’s corporate profile.
“Now, the company has become the main enterprise of the largest scale, the completely products kind, the highest quality and the best services in the global.”
In my opinion, “the completely products kind” should be modified into “the complete products category”. In addition, the translation of professional vocabulary is also the common error in corporate profiles’ translation. The English text of corporate profile is a part of business English, one of the characteristics of business English is the abundant professional vocabulary and terminology.
And normative terminology is the premise of international business communication. So when translating, the translators must obey the basic information, and refer to professional dictionaries or professional books to understand the lexical meaning. For example, “综合型大型企业” should be translated into “conglomerate”, rather than “comprehensive and large-scale enterprise”.
2.2 Sentence structure
Besides the errors mentioned above, there are a lot of sentence structure errors in some enterprises’ English corporate profiles.
For example,
“Land and water transportation is very convenient, the geographical position is superior, and it is the ideal development base of trade and business”.
It is well known that English lays stress on hypotaxis, the sentence structure has to be completed. The link of two sentences can not be simply linked by comma, but associated words and subordinate clauses; And then, making the sentence a complete sentence. Thus, the above sentence can be changed into “The company possesses a preferable geographic location, with convenient land and water transportation, which is ideal for business development”.
The important reason why there are a large amount of errors in English corporate profiles is that ignorance of the coherence rule. The coherence rule means that the relationship between the translation and the readers, in other words, the translation can be understood and accepted in the cultural background of target language by the readers. The sentence which is changed can be accepted by the readers easier because it meets up with English idiomatic expressions; besides, it is easier to read and stress the key point. Therefore, the changed translation can be made the clients feel that the enterprise’s attitude is correctitude and have high demand in work quality, and then, they will pay more attention on this enterprise and consider to build business relationships with them.
2.3 The cultural differences
There are many differences between Chinese and western countries including religion faith, political history, thinking model and customs etc., and these differences can also be found in languages. [5] If the translators ignore or can’t deal with these differences correctly when translating Chinese corporate profiles, the translation will be out of place, and then bring bad influence to enterprise. [6]
For example, some enterprises’ English corporate profiles show that “dragon head company”, but in western culture, the dragon was a fierce monster, it isn’t the same meaning as that in Chinese culture. So the translators can choose some words which are familiar to readers, and it can be translated into “Flagship Company”, but in some conditions, it also can be translated into “leading company” because the translator puts the stress on communicational function. Another example is that “a land of fish and rice”, it is simple and abstrusity, the translator can refer to the Bible, there is a sentence said “a land flowing with milk and honey”. This kind of translation not only makes most western people understand, but also can make them feel familiar and geniality. At last, we can build a business relationship with them and expand the business scale.
2.4 The errors of pragmatics translation
Pragmatics translation means using wrong translational expression to show the meaning of the original text, and causing misusing and breaking the language customs. When Nord analyzed the reason of pragmatics translation errors, he pointed out that “all translational processes are the mediate between the original and the translation’s situation. Pragmatics translation errors are caused by the difference between these two situations”. [1]
If there is something wrong in pragmatics translation, the translation will not reach the expectant aims. For example, some enterprises can’t realize the differences between Chinese and English readers, they translate all information into English. But foreign clients ask for concreteness and objectivity and stand out the function of information, emphasizing customer first, propagandizing the benefits of customers are the most important; Especially stand out “YOU-ATTITUDE”. [4] If the translation only obeys the original text, the translation text will become wishy-washy. There are some paragraphs in English corporate profiles.
公司创业以来秉承“永博精美、大家风范、质量第一、客户至上”的永续经营原则，坚持以“市场为先导、科技为支撑、人才为根本、实力为后盾”的企业发展战略。尽享天时地利，环境优美，水、陆、空交通极其方便。热忱欢迎中外各业惠顾，并将为您带来更大的兴旺与发达。
“First-class technology and first class service is our most sincere return to the user. We will, as always, dedicate to provide customers with better products and services!” and “Enjoy sharing, a beautiful environment, water, land and air traffic is very convenient. Welcome Chinese and foreign industries LTD, and will bring you more prosperous and developed.” (http://www.yongda-group.com/En/about.aspx)
These sentences are malarkey and popular at home, but they are the evaluation evaluated by the enterprises themselves. In addition, this kind of translation would make the readers feel bored. Therefore, we have to pick out the important information and omit self-evaluation. So that the original text can be changed into:
We will try our best to offer our customers first-class technology and first-class service, provide them with better products. Besides, we welcome Chinese and foreign industries LTD come to our company and do some business with us.
After improvement, this paragraph is more modest than before, and will give readers the feeling of familiar, the customers will prefer to do business with them. So pick out the important information and omit self-evaluation.
Chapter three The C-E translation strategies of corporate profiles
The Skopostheorie points out that every translational action has its aims, and achieves definite function. When we translate Chinese corporate profiles, the translators should consider how to achieve the functions of the original, and get the aims of translation. In view of the differences between English and Chinese corporate profiles, in the process of C-E translation, the translators not only have to consider the original writer’s aims; the prospective function of the target text in target culture, but also take into account the need of target text readers.
Because of the differences of language culture and thinking, aesthetics and so on, there are a lot of differences between Chinese and English corporate profiles. And the translators should pay attention to these differences during the translation and consider the translation’s purposes, and then choose different strategies according to the actual situations.
3.1 omitting the useless and insignificance information
Corporate profiles usually include the introduction of enterprises, such as the name of enterprise、the scale of enterprise、 products and the services which they offer and so on. However, there are some different information between Chinese and English corporate profiles.
For example, there are some detail information about enterprise awards and honor, these awards and honor are one of the most important parts of Chinese corporate profiles, but they are hardly found in English corporate profiles.
The reason for the differences between Chinese and English corporate profiles is that Chinese enterprises care about enterprise value and pay attention to enterprise image. Therefore, Chinese enterprises emphasize self honor and awards. While English enterprises believe in the theory that the customer is God, and lay stress on displaying the consumption value of commodities.
Thus, the awards and honor in the Chinese corporate profiles which Chinese enterprises consider valuable are too redundant in foreigners’ eyes. And when the translators face these differences, what should they do to deal with them? There is an example which can give the answer to this problem.
“It’s one of the 100 best industrial enterprises in Fujian Province and is one of the 50 best enterprises of Traditional Chinese Medicine Industry in China. It has been in the ten most competition enterprises in Fujian Province. And it also has been selected into the 300 best beneficial enterprises in China. The company is famous for Pien Tze Huang which is rare Chinese Patent Medicine, it has been well established in the world market. The registered brand Pien Tze Huang won Chinese Famous Trade Mark in 1999. In 2006, the company was chosen as the first affirmation of China’s Time-honored Brand, and was ranked in the twentieth on the list of one hundred companies with great strength for their famous brand value of China’s Time-honored Brand. The product series of Pien Tze Huang has got the certificate of the Origin of China. ……In 2004, this company was appraised as the Ten Best Performance Enterprises among all the state-owned and state-holding companies in Fujian.” (http://www.zzpzh.com/main.asp)
The original text is about the awards. It is very rich in content, and the translator’s aim is to make readers feel that this enterprise is a powerful one with high reputation through listing a series of honor, which can be reached in China. However, from the perspective of Skopostheorie, this kind of translation can’t reach the expected aims of the original text, and it may make a diversion to readers, or make them lose their patience to read the whole article.
In the structure of the Skopostheorie, the original text is not the most important part, but only an information source and it can’t say that “the meaning of original text is conveyed to the translation text receivers. Instead, the translator chooses some information from the original text under the guide of translation requirements deals with these information and makes them become new information source in the target language. (Nord, 1997: 32). So the translator can select some useful information according to practical situation and reach the expectant aim. Now the translator deletes the redundant information and replaces the paragraph with “Pien Tze Huang has granted many honorable titles”.
It is easy to understand that if the enterprises want to achieve the translation goals, they should consider the characteristics of English corporate profiles, and select the most important information, and avoid metaphrasing the whole article when they translate Chinese corporate profiles into English. If one English corporate profile has a lot of useless and insignificance information, it will affect the image of the enterprise, and not good for expand their business scale.
3.2 Using concise and correct wording
There exist huge differences between Chinese and English’s corporate profiles in making sentence. The general characteristics of Chinese corporate profiles are using exaggerated words, parallel construction, antithesis reiteration and other expression ways. We can easily find idioms, major terms and compliment words in the Chinese corporate profiles because of those utterance are very popular in domestic. And this kind of writing can make the article readers feel readability and enjoy the rhythm; it’s suitable to Chinese wording custom and aesthetic characteristics. However, the English corporate profiles generally use simple words and hardly use rhetoric or redundant expression. The reason of western people’s behavior is that they want to get the most helpful information in short time instead of find useful information in the gaudy description.
There are some regular sentences in Chinese corporate profiles; they show up in our life frequently, and it can easily accept by domestic merchants or companies. For example, “xx company set up in xx” and so on. In addition, some insignificance expressions are easy to find out, especially at the last of article. But these situations hardly exist in English corporate profiles, because English corporate profiles is simple, easily understanding and can be well accepted. Therefore, the translators must pay more attention to these differences, and deal well with the gaudy description. If they want to get the aim of expecting, the translators should take a good consider about the need of readers and acceptance. What they have to do is “make to be simple, stress on important information, use practical words, and make content clear” (Ning hailin, Xu jianzhong, 2008), and they should avoid word-for-word translation which brings to the readers a feeling of exaggeration. For those regular sentences, some of them can use equal English sentential form to translate, but most of them should be disposed carefully.
水仙公司的发展过程，是与时俱进、改革创新的真实写照，是漳州市国企改制和“强强联合”的成功范例。水仙人将以“为明天做好今天”的企业精神为动力，从我做起，从今天做起，积健为雄，共铸辉煌的明天。
“The development of the company is a true portrayal of making innovations and following the trend of the times. It also set a good example for the reform of State Own enterprises and the unification of both powerful units in Zhangzhou city. “Do a good job today for tomorrow” is our enterprising spirits that will inspire us to make a prosperous future with everyone’s effort to work perfectly from today”(http://www.zzsx.com.cn/EN/about.aspzz)
This kind of expression shows up in Chinese corporate profiles frequently, and the Chinese readers would feel the rhythm. But for foreign readers, it is too long and just little information. So, the paragraph can be changed into “The Company will continue to innovate and follow the trend of the times, and keep our faith, do perfect jobs.” The Skopostheorie cares about the translation’s aim and function; emphasizes the readers’ requirements, and make the readers accept easily. Thus the translators should consider carefully about the differences between two kinds of language when translating corporate profiles, which makes the readers easy to understand and accept; and then get the aims of translation. So they should use concise and correct wording, help the readers get important information as soon as possible. At last, a good English corporate profile can help enterprises build a business relationship with foreign enterprises and expand their scale of enterprise.
3.3 Discourse reconstruction
The manners of Chinese and English writing are different, corporate profiles writing is no exception. In Chinese corporate profiles, their characteristics are obeying writing criteria, simple formats and so on. However, English corporate profile stresses on logical relationship, their articles are clear, straightforward, well arranged. Therefore, the word-by-word translation isn’t helpful and terrible. If the translators want to get the prospective aims, they should make some adjustment for the original text, and fit the custom of readers.
The Skopostheorie, which put forward by Vermeer, points out that the original is just an offer of information, and this kind of information may be accepted by the target language readers with a part or full ( Zhang meifang, Wang kefei, 2005:15). According to the Skopostheorie, the translators can make discourse reconstruction to the original text; it means adding, deleting and adapting, it can be changed in form, or in content. It is a good strategy in C-E corporate profiles translation. When the translators translate corporate profiles, they must analyze the original at first and unscramble the original text’s information, and then, reorganize to the original according to the thinking habit of readers.
The original text:福建力佳股份有限公司（简称福建力佳）是以具有50多年历史的原国家大型二类企业——福建省龙溪机器厂为改制主体,于1998年12月28日创立。其前身是由西南空军修理厂和地方农械厂于1957年7月联合创立。公司现有员工1000人，其中各类专业技术人员220人，公司总资产3.7亿元，占地12.93万平方米，建筑面积7.4万平方米。是中国机械工业500强、省高新技术企业，拥有省级技术中心，力佳牌柴油机商标被国家工商总局确认为中国驰名商标。
The translation text: Fujian Lijia Co., Ltd. (also called Fujian Lijia) as a large second category state-owned enterprise was established on the 28th, December, 1998, reformed from Fujian Longxi Machinery Works. The company is founded jointly in July 1957 by Southwest air force repair works and local machinery works. Now Fujian Lijia Co., Ltd. has total assets 370 million RMB and over 1000 employees, including 220 professional technicians, occupying 129．3 thousand square meters, with 74000 square meter building area. The company is the Top 500 of China Machinery Industry and the provincial innovation and high technology enterprise, it has established Provincial-level technology center. (http://www.lijia.com.cn/Index.asp)
When analyzing this paragraph, we can easily find that the translation text is corresponding to the original text, and translated word by word. But under the perspective of the Skopostheorie, this kind of translation text can’t be well accepted by the readers and can’t get the aims of translating. Thus the translators have to analyze the original text at first; and then, they have to consider whether it is necessary to reorganize in form or information. On the other hand, there are a lot of differences between Chinese and English corporate profiles, the information which is considered useful by Chinese readers, but English readers can’t agree with it. So that the original text can be changed into:
Fujian Lijia Co., Ltd. was a machinery work company which is the Top 500 of China Machinery Industry and the provincial innovation and high technology enterprise. It was established on the 28th December, 1998. Nowadays, it has total assets 370 million RMB and over 1000 employees, including 220 professional technicians, occupying 129．3 thousand square meters.