Enlightment of Skopos Theory on the translation of company profiles:

With the globalization course going forward constantly and China’s boom in economy, an increasing number of Chinese auto parts companies have joined in the global market competition. Company profile plays a critical role in building positive image, publicizing the company and promoting its products and services in the global market.

Although many companies have realized the importance of company profile, there is still much to be desired for the quality of their bilingual profiles due to some problems and errors in cultural, linguistic and tactical levels, which will be expounded hereinafter.

It is of great significance to give foreigners an accurate and professional picture of a company through profile, whereas, there exist numerous discrepancies between Chinese and English. Grounded upon skopos theory, this thesis is designed to analyze the problems within consideration of the differences so as to seek out the reasons behind the errors and problems, and then accordingly some solutions are presented to improve the Chinese-English translation of auto parts company profiles.

An initiator needs a text for a particular purpose and calls upon the translator for a translation. Every translation task should be accompanied by a translation brief that defines the conditions under which the target text should carry out its particular function.

Translation brief specifies what kind of translation is needed. It should contain explicit or implicit information about: the (intended) text function(s), the target-text addressee(s), the (prospective) time and place of text reception, the medium over which the text will be transmitted, and the motive for the production or reception of the text (Nord)

A company profile is essentially “a résumé” with in-depth information about an organization, targeting to “establish the credibility with the market the company serves”. (Hackett)

On the whole, company profiles cover such information as company overview, including registered fund, the nature of company, technical strength, corporation scale and conditions about staff; the development; culture; sales performance and after-service of a company.

What’s more, being a sort of distinctive company profile, APCP still makes a rough description about the auto parts ranges with their international code and to which types of automobiles applicable.

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In addition, the current situation about techniques, equipments, relevant professional certificates as well as main customers and markets, which are key criteria that customers, potential employees and partners will evaluate whether it is the very company they’d like to cooperate with.

From the perspective of Skopostheorie, translation of company profiles is usually receiver-oriented and then a good target text should be effective enough to achieve the purpose of promoting sales and attracting foreign investment in the new markets, which is the purpose or skopos of the overall translation process.

A qualified translator should always bear in mind the role of the receiver. Translators of company profiles, therefore, shall give priority to this ultimate skopos instead of the preservation of the forms or contents of the original.

Translators should also take into careful consideration the needs, motives and expectations of prospective customers as well as language and cultural differences, giving full play to his imagination and creativity as an expert in cross-cultural communication.

He/she is entitled to make use of every strategy which is appropriate to make his translation appealing to the target audience and produce a company profile likely to be acceptable and effective in promoting sales and attracting foreign investment.