Literature Review

As business letter played more and more important roles in business activities, its research has also been more and more popular. From both inside and outside, many a scholar dedicated to the translation theory, among which YanShanming#8217;s 7C principles achieved most acknowledgment, namely correctness, conciseness, clarity, concreteness, completeness, courtesy and consideration. All business letters comply with these 7C principles. The world famous translator Nada put forward the theory of dynamic equivalence which pursue not only the consistence of the content but also of the form. This theory is responsible for the business letter translation.

As for its special characteristic, FuXiaoping and HuXiaogang of Xinyu Academy said relatively complete in their Business Letter Characteristic and Translation. They thought that business letter is greatly complied with international trade and has various forms. Its major language is English and it involves culture distinction and bears law validity. Based on these characteristics, the translation should be clearly and professional for the convenience of easy communication. Besides, mastering of specialized acronyms and courtesy are also badly needed.

The translation of business letter has its own specialties and is different from other common translation. Its core lies in efficiency. So economization and conciseness should be emphasized. Correctness and formalization should be preferred rather than rhetoric.

Another scholar from Hubei University of Technology emphasized the importance of courtesy in business letter. He thought the more adverse the letter is, the more politeness should be expressed. Although business has the tendency of being oralized, its major flow is still formal written language.

For the businessman, time is money. They have plenty of work to do everyday. Their valuable time decides that the business letter as well as its translation should be concise and clear and avoid the beautiful language in literature. For the sake of time-saving, large number of polite formula and fixed expression are used in business letter which greatly speed up the information transmission. This characteristic asks the translation not translate word by word. It should conjoint set translation and literal translation. Additionally, business letter often directly relative to interests. So its translation should be complete and accurate to avoid the possible business friction.