第1章会计英语学习的必要性
1.1会计英语特殊用途
根据新大英百科全书，会计是一门系统的开发和分析有关经济事务的组织的信息。自我国加入到WTO以来，会计英语在日常贸易中的应用和翻译越来越多，也越来越多的被更多的人学习。本论文运用了维米尔的目的论及纽马克的语义翻译法和交际翻译法来研究会计英语。Accounting English belongs to a branch of English for Special Purpose. This concept isfirst promoted by Halliday in 1964. Different from general English, English for SpecialPurpose is the functional variety of modern English which is a speech range used particularlyby specific social groups. For the convenience of English teaching and according to thedifferent language functions, English for Special Purpose is divided into following figure:
In the above figure (Fang & Mao, 2005:21), EST means English for Science andTechnology, EBE means English for Business Economy, ESS means English for SocialSciences, EAP means English for Academic Purpose, and EOP means English forOccupational Purpose. Accourding to this figure, accounting English belongs to EOP /yingyufanyiof EBE,which is a branch of ESP.
In the field of business, the boundary of nations has been becoming blurred. This processis defined as globalization or internalization, which Tomas Freidman illustrates in ametaphorical way—“the world is flat”. As the second largest economy in the world, China isdefinitely involved in this process. Therefore, it is very crucial for Chinese accountants andbusiness people to read financial reports and grasp accounting conditions of various businessentities from different countries. Consequently, the need of accounting English becomes moreand more obvious.It is common that many Chinese accountants may have some knowledge of English andcan use it to communicate with their western partners. However, some accounting materialsand financial statements may result from international accounting activities, and thus twodifferent languages and various accounting technical terms would be involved. This wouldput a difficult for many Chinese accountants to comprehend the meaning of original Englishaccounting texts. In such cases, people, particularly translators, with a good knowledge /yingyufanyiofaccounting English is needed to reproduce those accounting English texts into Chinese underthe basis of international agreements and precise understanding.
In this way, English-Chinesetranslation of accounting English becomes necessary.Besides the above practical value, studying accounting English also has some theoreticalvalue. Like legal English, accounting English is a most important branch of science English.Unlike legal English, accounting English has not been given deserved attention in theresearch field of English for Special Purpose (ESP). In fact, there are lots of questions need tobe answered, such as: What are the features of accounting English at the lexical andsyntactical level? What is the most difficult thing in studying it? Which translation skill isbetter adopted while we translate accounting Chinese into English, or English into Chinese?And so on so forth. The process of thinking and answering these questions would promote thedevelopment of ESP research.
Chapter 2 Theoretical Background理论背景
2.1 Vermeer’s Skopos Theory目的论
The word “skopos” is a Greek word that means “purpose”. Skopos theory is an approachto translation which was developed in Germany in the late 1970s, and which reflects thegeneral shift from predominantly linguistic and rather formal translation theories to a morefunctionally and soicoculturally oriented concept of translation. In the framework of thistheory, translation is not just regarded as a simple process of transcoding, but as a specificform of human action. Just like other human actions, translation has a purpose, and thetechnical term “skopos” is employed to mean the purpose of a translation.Hans Vermeer, the founder of skopos theory, advocates that the purpose of a target textdetermines the translation approach and concrete skills. He objects the traditional view whichregards source text, or its effects on source text readers, or the purpose of source text authoras a decisive factor in the process of translation. Instead, Vermeer raises the skopos to thecenter of the translation action. Therefore, each translated work must justify its own skopos.
Chapter 3 Features of Accounting English............................................. 20-31
3.1 Lexical Features............................................. 20-25
3.2 Syntactic Features............................................. 25-27
3.2.1 Passive Sentence............................................. 26-27
3.2.2 Complex Sentence............................................. 27
3.3 Rhetoric Features............................................. 27-31
3.3.1 Seldom Use of Rhetoric Devices............................................. 27-28
3.3.2 Poor Choices of Tenses............................................. 28-31
Chapter 4 Translation of Accounting English under............................................. 31-48
4.1 The Criteria of Accounting English Translation............................................. 31-33
4.1.1 Accuracy .............................................31-32
4.1.2 Brevity .............................................32
4.1.3 Objective .............................................32-33
4.2 Translation Skills Applied............................................. 33-48
4.2.1 Translation of Technical Words............................................. 33-36
4.2.2 Translation of Non-technica.............................................36-41
4.2.3 Translation of Passive Sentences............................................. 41-44
4.2.4 Translation of Complex .............................................44-48
结论
For a long time, accounting has been a backbone of economy. As the language ofbusiness, it is widely used in business field. Even for those people out of business, accountinghas been used in their daily life consciously or unconsciously. Nowadays, since Chinabecomes more involved in the trend of globalization, accounting Engish is more and moreimportant in our country’s social and economical life. In this thesis, the features of accountingEnglish and the skills of its English-Chinese translation are studied under the guidance ofskopos theory and communicative translation method.
This thesis studies Vermeer’s skopos theory and Peter Newmark’s semantic &communicative translation methods. Skopos theory advocates that the purpose of translationshould be put into the first place during the process of choosing translation approach andconcrete skills, and the need of readers in target source is a crucial criterion of determiningthe purpose of translation. When it comes to the English-Chinese translation of accountingEnglish, the main purpose is to let Chinese accountants get advanced accounting informationin an easily understood way. Then the thesis compares the two translation methods putforward by Peter Newmark—semantic translation method and communicative translationmethod. After comparison, the author of this thesis thinks that in the translation of accountingEnglish communicative translation method is more suitable. Therefore, no matter whether itis according to skopoes theory or communicative translation method, the idiomaticexpression of Chinese is crucial during the translation. Thus the translation of accountingEnglish is guided by skopos theory, and under this principle, communicative translationmethod helps translators to form concrete translation skilss.
Lastly, researchers can study accounting English from the perspective of teachingmethod. As the language of business, the features of accounting English and its translationmethod need to be understood not only by people in academic field, but also those in businessworld.