【正文】 trade policies within agreed limits to everyone’s benefit. The agreements were negotiated and signed by governments so as to help producers of goods and services as well as exporters and importers conduct their business. The goal of the WTO is to improve the welfare of the peoples of the member countries and regions.[3] 劉光溪，張學(xué)森主編，Selected Readings on the WTO《WTO英文選讀》，P. 3[3]s work are recorded in the official documents of the councils, mittees, working groups etc. Generally, WTO documents include the following three parts: in such an epoch when economic globalization bees a trend, translators should go all out to meet the requirements after China’s accession to the WTO. The Current Theoretical ControversyNowadays, the controversy among Chinese scholars on the usefulness of translation theories is still raging on, which is evidenced in such leading academic journals as Chinese Translator’s Journal (《中國翻譯》), the Shanghai Journal of Translators for Science and Technology (《上?？萍挤g》), and Dalian Foreign Languages Institute’s Foreign Language and Their Teaching (《外語與外語教學(xué)》). Debates are focused on a number of fundamental issues as whether there is any valid translation theory at all, whether translation studies belong to the category of science or that of art, whether we should fix our eyes on traditional Chinese translation theories or the current Western translation theories, etc. The most important debate seems to be whether there is a valid translation theory at all. The dominant view among the theoretical circle is that translation theoriesalso known as translatology or translation studies, have been developing fast and have already taken shape. Although these theories may not have exerted a tremendous influence on the translation practice, they are already well developed, incorporating a large number of disciplines such as linguistics, semantics, pragmatics, semiotics, sociolinguistics, cognitive linguistics, crosscultural studies, literary criticism, etc. Based on such a solid foundation, translation theories seem to be quite mature. This view is shared by most translation theorists such as Wang Dongfeng (王東風(fēng)), Tan Zaixi (譚載喜), Xu Jun (許鈞), Yang Zijian (楊自儉), etc.On the other hand, some scholars have bravely voiced their opposition, claiming that the socalled translation theory is merely a fond dream that has not yet been fulfilled or is may not be fulfilled even in future, and therefore it is necessary for us to give up any illusion about the usefulness of a translation theory.It is difficult to arrive at a definite conclusion at the present stage. It is true that soon after Zhang Jinghao published his “fond dream” article in October 1999。 Current Western Translation TheoriesDissatisfied with the traditional Chinese approach, many scholars have turned to Western theories for solution. Generally speaking, Western theories fall into two categories: linguistic theories and cultural studies. Now let us examine whether they have really helped the practical translators.In terms of the linguistic approach, one cannot fail to mention such big names as Nida, Newmark and Catford.In his book “A Linguistic Theory of Translation” (1965) Catford introduces linguistic theories into translation studies. He tries to find or establish equivalence at various ranks or levels between languages, especially between English and other European languages. Maybe his idea can achieve a certain degree of success across European languages, which bear a great deal of similarities between them. However, English and Chinese are almost poles apart, and therefore it is extremely difficult to establish a sort of formal equivalence between them. Justifiably, his theory has produced little impact on the Chinese translation circles.Newmark proposes a correlative approach that includes semantic translation and municative translation. Since his dichotomy is quite similar to the traditional Chinese classification of literal and liberal translation, it has been better received here. Still, it is only received at the theoretical level. The translation practitioners have benefited next to nothing. The conventional categorization of literal and liberal translation is good enough for practice purposes.Nida, with his theory on functional equivalence or dynamic equivalence, once produced great enthusiastic responses from Chinese scholars. Here are some of his main ideas: “Translation consists in reproducing in the receptor language the closest natural equivalence of the source language message, first in terms of meaning and secondly in terms of style”。The WTO documents cover a broad range: GATT 1947 (Cf. ), Tokyo Round Codes, Kennedy Round Codes, the Uruguay Round agreements, ministerial decisions and declarations, Post1994 Accession Protocols and other official records, etc. In specialpurpose munication the documents are formulated in a special language or sublanguage[8] The term sublanguage reflects the fact that a special language is part of general or ordinary language.[8] generally known as the language of the international economic laws that is subject to special lexical, semantic and grammatical rules. Due to the authoritative nature of legal texts, the translators need to take the features of legal texts into consideration. Above all, translators of the WTO documents must be able to use language effectively to express legal ideas so as to achieve the desired legal effects.In general, drafters of legal texts should spare no efforts to ensure that a text says exactly what it is meant to, and leaves no space for misinterpretation. Thus, translators must pay attention to the lexical, semantic and grammatical features of the WTO documents.[12] 《烏拉圭回合多邊貿(mào)易談判結(jié)果：法律文本》, 第249頁, 第2123行[12]In the above sentence, formal words such as “confer” and “remuneration” are employed instead of their informal synonyms “give” and “payment”. 3) 3) The contracting parties