A Systems-Theoretic Perspective to the Translation of Company Profiles from Chinese into English

Abstract

A translation system is made up of a source text subsystem and a target text subsystem. The elements in the system are interrelated and exert influence on each other. Translation studies from a systems-theoretic perspective focus primarily on literary texts, while business discourses are seldom explored. In order to assess the translation quality of company profiles, a three-level model from the systems theory perspective has been proposed. The three levels are the preliminary data level, the discourse level, and the contextual level. The results show that the translator should attach great importance to improving and restructuring the source text and reconstructing experiential meaning, interpersonal meaning, and textual meaning. The translation should be reader-oriented and adapt to the cultural context of the target language.