电子商务文本学位论文,交际翻译学位论文

摘要

近年来,国内电商零售企业蓬勃发展,成为零售行业的中坚力量，并逐渐走向世界。然而，虽然电子商务文本作为跨境电商沟通的重要桥梁，其翻译的重要性不言而喻，但是一直以来电子商务文本的研究却一直未得到足够的重视。本次翻译实践原文本节选自《电子商务与新零售研究》一书第 9 章，即我国电子商务企业创新实践。该书由资深电子商务研究专家倾力打造，在电子商务研究领域有重要影响。本报告针对该电子商务文本，探索和分析电子商务文本翻译方法与技巧， 旨在进一步推动我国电子商务企业及其创新经验走出去。

本报告首先对原文本进行分析，发现原文本语言平实、表达正式，内容客观严谨，以向读者介绍我国电商企业创新实践的信息为目的，总体上属于信息型文本。然后结合该电子商务文本三个方面的特征：在词汇上，多用新造词，专有名词和四字成语；在句法上，常涉及口号、动宾结构和主动语态；在语篇上，少用关联词等，确立交际翻译与语义翻译相结合的翻译策略。随后，在具体实例中探讨翻译技巧,以使读者阅读译文时产生与原文读者相同或相似的反应，并最大限度地传递原文信息。最后，对电子商务文本的翻译策略和技巧进行了总结并反思了本研究的不足。

本报告主要得到如下两个发现：一是电子商务文本虽然属于商务文本，却又具有自己的独特性和翻译难点，所以针对电子商务文本进行研究十分必要；二是交际翻译与语义翻译相结合的翻译策略适用于指导电子商务文本翻译实践且具有突出优越性。

本次翻译实践具有重要的理论意义和现实意义。就理论意义而言，尽管彼得纽马克的交际翻译和语义翻译被广泛应用于众多文本的翻译实践，但却很少用于指导电子商务文本的翻译实践。因此，本实践是将交际翻译和语义翻译应用于电子商务文本翻译的一次重要尝试。就现实意义而言，原文本涉及我国电子商务企业的创新实践，将我国电子商务企业及其创新实践推介出去，而电子商务文本翻译的研究也将有助于国际电子商务交流与合作的深入发展。

关键词：电子商务文本; 交际翻译; 语义翻译; 信息传达

摘要

Contentsvii

List of Abbreviationsix

Chapter One Introduction1

1.1Background of the Translation Project1

1.2Objectives of the Practice and the Report2

1.3Significance of the Report2

1.4Structure of the Report4

Chapter Two Theoretical Framework7

2.1Communicative Translation8

2.2Semantic Translation8

2.3The Applicability of Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation. 10

Chapter Three Task Description12

3.1Preparation12

3.1.1Source Text Description12

3.1.2Tools and Plans of Translation14

3.2Translation Process15

3.3Quality Control16

Chapter Four Case Study19

4.1Translation Skills at the Lexical Level19

4.1.1Coinages20

4.1.2Proper Nouns23

4.1.3The Four-character Idioms25

4.2Translation Skills at the Syntactic Level28

4.2.1Slogan28

4.2.2Verb Plus Object Structures29

4.2.3Sentences of Active Voice30

4.3Translation Skills at the Discoursal level32

4.3.1Long Discoursal without Conjunctions32

4.3.2Discourse Consisting of Long Sentences34

Chapter Five Conclusion37

5.1Major Findings37

5.2Limitations and Suggestions38

References40

Appendixes43

Appendix A43

vii

Appendix B58

Acknowledgments78

Chapter One Introduction

In this report, the first section of the 9th chapter of a Chinese book, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail is excerpted as a research object, titled “The Innovative Practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises”, and taking Peter  Newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation as the guidance, this project explores the translation methods and skills of e-commercial texts in an effort  to introduce China’s e-commercial enterprises as well as its’ innovative experience to the whole world and in a wish to give some reference e-commercial text translation in the future. This chapter is mainly composed of four parts: background of the translation task, objectives of the practice and the report, significance  of the report and structure of the report.

1.1 Background of the Translation Project

E-commerce, as an emerging industry, is now gathering sound momentum in some countries, including China (Yan Deli, 2016). Since 2015 when the concept of “Internet Plus” proposed by Chinese premier Li Keqiang was firstly carried out, the Internet gradually became pervasive in many fields with a trend of diversified development, and inclusively integrated with big data, cloud computing, Internet of Things, modern manufacturing and so forth. Upheld by the favorable policy from theh Chinese government, thousands of e-commercial start-ups have sprung out over the years, making marvelous contributions to China’s economic growth (Nie Linhai, 2015). And in accordance with the statistics, China’s e-commerce market had traded

10.2 trillion yuan by the end of 2017 (Zhang Liyuan, 2018).

The development speed of e-commerce in China is the fastest in the world in 2015 (Wang Juanjuan & Qin Wei, 2015). Stimulated by the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese e-commerce industry has undergone its high-speed development, procuring remarkable achievements in economic growth and employment rate increase. Even America advanced in e-commerce also meets the massive challenges from Chinese e-commercial enterprises. Two platforms of Alibaba, 11Main and Wish, become the strong rivals challenging the dominant position of America’s eBay (Li Zhengbo & Qiu Qiong, 2017).

However, there are still a great number of countries legging behind in e-commerce progress. Attracted by the ample economic profits and bright prospects of

e-commerce, many countries begin laying stress on this e-commerce market and welcoming all sorts of advanced ideas concerning e-commerce development. In such  a circumstance, successful experience and innovative ideas concerning e-commerce development will be favored by many foreign enterprises. Apart from that, e-commercial text translation is unavoidably needed as more and more e-commercial enterprises extend their business abroad and the cross-border e-commerce cooperation is now flourishing. Hence, it is imperative to translate e-commercial texts.

1.2Objectives of the Practice and the Report

In terms of the objectives, this practice, with English readers as its target readers and the material of the innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises as its source text (hereafter called ST), is, first of all, designed to help China’s e-commercial enterprises go out. In other words, the fundamental goal of this practice is to assist English readers in getting more acquaintances with China’s e-commercial enterprises, brands, platforms and learning from the innovative experience of China’s e-commercial enterprises. Secondly, this practice is also aimed at probing methods and skills for e-commercial text translation since the translation study basing on e-commercial texts has not been laid adequate stress on. Last but not least, this practice tries to propose a translation model for e-commercial text translation--combining communicative translation with semantic translation.

The objectives of this report can be generalized into three aspects. First and foremost, this report is in a purpose of proving the superiority of combining communicative translation and semantic translation in specific practice of e-commercial text translation. Secondly, through this report, some features of e-commercial texts and translation methods as well as skills targeted to e-commercial text translation are intended to be unveiled as reference for further researches. Finally, this report is also in an effort to attract attention for e-commerce translation study.

1.3Significance of the Report

E-commerce, created in the 1990s, is a product for meeting people’s pursuit of a new way for massive productivity (Wang You, 2007). With its unique merits--high efficiency, low costs, diversified products and service, e-commerce brings exciting opportunities for the development of marketing channel intermediaries (Aldin Niklas

& Brehmer Per-Olof & Johansson Anders, 2004). What’s more, it challenges the conception and operative methods of traditional business activities. And today, e-commerce is triggering the third revolution, posterior to the agricultural revolution and industrial revolution, by acting directly on business activities and posing impacts on various fields of economy (Wang You, 2007). China witnesses a booming period of e-commercial enterprises with a great number of successful experiences (Li Qi, 2000). Therefore, the translation project guided by Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation with the innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises as the ST is of great significance theoretically and practically.

Theoretically, this study is a new attempt to employ Peter Newmark’s translation theory into e-commercial text translation. On the one hand, although the translation of e-commercial texts plays a vital role as China’s cross-border e-commerce cooperation with other countries becomes increasingly frequent there haven’t been enough attention paid to the study of e-commercial text translation. On the other hand, the theory of communicative translation and semantic translation is of practical value of guidance (Samuelsson, B., 2006). And it is also rarely applied in translating e-commercial texts. Thus, this translation project not only supplements for the neglected field but also probes a new and available theoretical perspective for translating e-commercial texts.

Practically, e-commercial text, first of all, as a key to cross-border e-commerce cooperation is of significant value since e-commerce are now playing an essential role in economic growth in China (Sun Lei & Wang Fang, 2015). And similarly, it can contribute to the economy of many other countries. What’s more, the translation of e-commercial texts is a vital bridge of communication in the process of cross-border trade. Furthermore, though as a new branch of commercial texts, commerce texts possess its’ own features distinguished from other kinds ofcommercial texts, owing to its’ close connection with the Internet, e-commercial texts generally include the buzzwords, and computer terminologies, coinages and also words concerning fashion industry etc. Moreover, the ST also features in its non-subject sentences, parallel structures, long sentences, etc. Those are the obstacles uneasily to be solved. However, the studies on e-commercial text translation have not been thought highly as it deserved. Therefore, probing methods and skills to solve those problems in e-commercial text translation will be of great value. Last but not the least, it is of great

importance to translate the innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises into English. For one thing, this translation project with the successful and innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises as its ST will conduce to raise the reputation of China’s enterprises in readers’ minds and the translation is, to some extent, conducive to the promotion of Chinese brands and e-commerce  platforms since there are some Chinese brands and e-commerce platforms involved in this text. For another, more in-depth, comprehensive and mutual-benefit cross-border cooperation and in the field of e-commerce can be achieved by introducing fruitful experience of China’s e-commercial enterprises to the e-commercial enterprises of other countries.

All in all, this translation project aims to explore translation methods and skills and to probe a new theoretical perspective for translating e-commercial text. Moreover, with the innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises as the content of ST, this project is an attempt of raising the attention to the study of e-commercial text translation and introducing China’s e-commercial enterprises to the world, and a trigger for win-win e-commercial cooperation between China and other countries.

1.4Structure of the Report

The report is composed of the following five chapters:

The first chapter is introduction. In this chapter, a general introduction to the background of e-commerce as well as the translation report is offered. And it can be found in the introduction that in recent years China has witnessed a great leap in the field of e-commerce, and the translation research on e-commercial text is necessary. Then the objectives of the practice and the report are discussed specifically. Later, the significance and structure of this report are respectively narrated from the theoretical perspective and practical perspective. In short, after reading this chapter, readers are expected to have a holistic view on the translation report and significance of this research.

The second chapter is theoretical framework. In this chapter, the theory of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation are expounded.

Moreover, through the detailed analyses of communicative translation and semantic translation, it can be proven that the combination of communicative translation and semantic translation is of paramount superiority in translating the ST mainly owing to the two reasons. For one thing, communicative translation, highlighting the information of the ST, perfectly coincides with the main purpose of this translation practice--to provide target readers with valuable experience from successful e-commercial enterprises. For another, semantic translation, emphasizing the  language itself, is appropriate to another vital purpose of this translation--to help Chinese enterprises go global further.

The third chapter is translation process description, which involves three stages: preparation, translation process and quality control. In the stage of preparation, the preparation of source text and the preparation of translation tools and materials are illustrated. As for the text analysis, the book, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, and its authors are introduced. Moreover, the features of the ST in view of its lexical, syntactic and textual features are illustrated. And then translation tools, such as terminology banks and paralleled texts employed in translation are involved and plans for translation are made. In the translation process, difficulties of translation in words, sentences and passages appeared and was eventually solved under the  guidance of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation. At last, quality control is demonstrated. Revision and assessments are made in accordance with Peter Newmark’s translation theory and the purpose of translation.

The fourth chapter is the case study, in which translation skills at the lexical, syntactical and discoursal level are analyzed to deal with the main difficulties of e-commercial text translation, such as coinages, proper nouns, four-character idioms, slogans, verb plus objective structures, sentences with active voice, and discourse without conjunctions under the guidance of communicative translation and semantic translation. Also, the applicability and superiority of combining communicative translation with semantic translation are further proved in this part.

The fifth chapter is an conclusion. In this part reflections on major findings, Limitations and suggestions of this research are illustrated. It is pointed out that the

model of taking communicative translation as its core, supplemented by semantic translation is of profound value in guiding the translation of informative e-commercial texts.

Chapter Two Theoretical Framework

Communicative translation and semantic translation were first proposed by Peter Newmark, a preeminent English translation theorist, who held translation is a skill an art as well as a science ( Peter Newmark, 2001). By applying the research findings of intercultural communication theory and modern linguistics, he created the dual theory of semantic and communicative methods of translation (Liao Qiyi, 2004: 148). Peter Newmark’s theory on semantic and communicative translation though generated in the 1980s, has attracted widespread attention since it was proposed. And it never fades away as time lapses. Instead, this theory has been enriched over the years and applied to guide rich assortment of translation practice.

Ever since Peter Newmark’s two masterpieces, Approaches to Translation and A textbook of translation, were published, his semantic and communicative translation were widely acclaimed (Liao Qiyi, 2002: 123). Peter Newmark points out that “translation means filling up the gap between languages (Peter Newmark, 1991)”. As a result, he proposes the semantic translation and communicative translation as the solution to the contradiction of literal translation and free translation (Peng Bo，2017).

In A textbook of translation, Newmark places 8 kinds of translation methods in

the form of a flattened V diagram as below:

SL emphasisTL emphasis

Word for word translationAdaptation Literal translationFree translation

Faithful translationIdiomatic translation

Semantic translation Communicative translation (Peter Newmark, 1988)

The translation methods on the left part emphasize the loyalty to source language text, while the translation methods on the right part lay stress on target language text. The V diagram presents that there is the narrowest gap between semantic translation and communicative translation, which shows semantic translation and communicative translation can greatly mediate the contradiction between literal translation and free translation.

In short, Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation clings to offer its readers an effect which is as close as possible to that obtained on the readers of the original (Peter Newmark, 2001: 39).

2.1Communicative Translation

Communicative translation is a method attempting to maintain the function of  the ST. In other words, translators are bounded to deliver the information in line with culture and pragmatic forms of a language, instead of loyally translating the text word by word. Therefore, for the purpose of ensuring readers a clear understanding, translators are obligated to make some adjustments, such as omission, amplification, paraphrase, etc. And if necessary, rectifying the confused part in their version to obtain better effects or correcting the authors mistakes in the ST is also promised (Lu Songdian, 2017). Thus, it is clear that the communicative translation attaches more importance to the target language readers (Jeremy Munday, 2001), and the effect of information transmission, which requires the version to be fluently and idiomatically.

What’s more, even though communicative translation pay closest attention to the second reader, who doesn’t anticipate obscurities and troubles (Peter Newmark, 2001), it is also necessary to announce that with this kind of method translators should also keep an eye on the other factors, such as writing styles, the culture of source language , and the loyalty to the ST. Fundamentally, the quality of version under the guidance of communicative translation is evaluated on whether the translator conveys the message and intention of ST writer efficiently (Yang Qingyu, 2017).

2.2Semantic Translation

Semantic translation, on the contrary, attempts to render, as closely as the semantic and syntactic structures of the second language allow, the exact contextual meaning of the ST (Peter Newmark, 2001:39). In other words, semantic translation highlights the ST. With semantic translation method translators lay stress on the author’s way of thinking, the style of the ST. In line with this method, translators mustbe loyal to the writer of the source text, giving priority to the expression of semantic meaning of the source text, and the version should accurately reproduce contextual meaning of source text as far as possible without deviating the semantic meaning and syntactic structure (Ye Chaocheng & Zhang Jianwei & Yelingzi, 2013). On essence, semantic translation highly respects the context of the source text. Semantic translation may require translators to paraphrase a metaphor which is nonsense in the target language. Besides, under the guidance of semantic translation, translators must be loyal to source text writers first (Ye Chaocheng & Zhang Jianwei & Yelingzi, 2013).

By combining the two kinds of translation method, an optimal translation method can be created(Yuan Hong, 2003), as all the translation methods are fundamentally included by communicative translation and semantic translation. Nevertheless, these two methods are not completely different from each other or mutually exclusive, and instead, both the two methods comply with syntactic equivalents and can coincide with each other(Peter Newmark, 2001). And most commonly in the process of translating a text, widely overlapping bands of methods are involved (Peter Newmark, 2001).

Notably, Peter Newmark regarded the analysis of text type as the prerequisite of method-choosing. Therefore, translation theory study cannot be separated from the function of the text, for that the text type classification without concerning the function of the texts would be meaningless (Liao Qiyi，2002). In accordance with the textual functions, text was divided into three types by Peter Newmark: the expressive text, the informative text and the vocative text (Fu Jing &Wang Hongyue, 2014). The text with the information that author really intends to express as it core is an informative text, which should be under the guidance of communicative translation. Texts related to technologies, businesses, industries and economy, such as textbooks,

news, papers, and so forth are involved. What’s more, a text can simultaneously cover several kinds of functions (Lin Xiaoqin, 1987). Even a particular section or sentence can be treated more communicatively or less semantically (Peter Newmark, 2001).

Apart from that, since the translation criteria are not immutable but adjustable

(Cai Ping, 2009). According to Peter Newmark’s theory, translation methods should be selected according to the type of text, nature of the readership and the purpose of translation (Wang Jinhua, 2007). Therefore, these three factors should also be considered in identifying communicative translation and semantic translation.

All in all, a rule of e-commerce translation can be concluded. Firstly, an analysis on text types are bounded to be made in translation. Secondly, as all translation to some extent must be both communicative and semantic (Peter Newmark, 2001), both communicative translation and semantic translation should be taken into account in translating a text. Thirdly, though text types should be given priority to, the translation method, even in translating a short section, is not unalterable.

2.3The Applicability of Communicative Translation and Semantic Translation

Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation is obviously preferable to other kinds of translation theories in guiding the process of translating the ST.

On the one hand, communicative translation which highlights the information of source texts is perfect for translating the ST. For one thing, in the light of the intentions of both writers and the translator, the final goal of this translation should be conveying the information of the source text and rendering it understandable to foreign readers and in this way innovative experience of Chinese e-commercial enterprises can be absorbed by those e-commercial enterprises overseas. For another, most of the target language readers are commonly in an intensive expectation of learning from the successful practice and experience of Chinese e-commercial enterprises, and therefore, the information should be given priority to.

On the other hand, semantic translation is appropriate for this translation project. As the ST involving a great number of China’s e-commercial enterprises, the version is also a medium for foreigners to get acquainted with these enterprises. Therefore, semantic translation which focus on the ST is also a fabulous choice.

Besides, different from functional approaches, which focuses on the source text without proper thinking of the readers (Christiane Nord, 2001), Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation provides considerable thinking to TT readers, in this way, TT readers are possible to gain the effect similar  to what readers of source language can obtain.

Hence, Peter Newmark’s communicative translation, attaching great importance to the information of the source text and the reaction of the target language readers, is of more profound significance of this text.

In summary, as the text simultaneously covers the feature of informative and vocative functions, both communicative translation and semantic translation methods should be employed in the process of translation. Therefore, in the process of translating the source text, translation guidance with communicative translation method as its core, supplemented by the semantic translation, was significantly employed.

Chapter Three Task Description

The translation task can be mainly divided into three stages according to the chronological order: the stage of preparation, the translation process and the stage of quality control.

3.1Preparation

A fabulous translation must be well prepared before the translation begins. Therefore, in the pre-translation stage, a time arrangement, the material collection and the analysis of difficulties are introduced, and a clear understanding of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and semantic translation is prepared. According to Peter Newmark’s communication translation theory, the version of translation should exert the same or similar effect on the target language readers as the ST text on the target language readers. Therefore, in preparation of the translation, the purposes of translation, the text analysis, the understanding of target readers and so forth had been taken into account.

The ST is selected from the 9th chapter of the Chinese text, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, covering 12901 characters. Since e-commerce is closely related with Internet, finance and business, a large variety of new words, jargon and terminologies are involved in the ST. Hence, in the pre-translation stage, terminologies are collected in a terminology bank and imported into Trados to ensure the accuracy of translation. Moreover, other translation tools, search engines and websites of e-commerce platforms, such as Lingoes, Tmxmall, business dictionaries, Google, Baidu, JD.com, etc. are applied in the process of searching, collecting, collating and checking as well.

3.1.1Source Text Description

The ST of the report of the translation practice is excerpted from the 9th chapter of the Chinese book --《电子商务新零售研究》, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, which is quite influential in the field of e-commerce business study.

3.1.1.1About the Author

The book is jointly written by Li Zhengbo and Qiu Qiong. Li Zhengbo has been worked on the research of domestic trade circulation, macro-consumption and business data. Qiu Qiong has long devoted herself to domestic trade circulation, e-commerce. With the joint effort of the two people, this book is endowed with great authoritative status in the field of e-commerce study.

3.1.1.2Introduction to the ST

The Research of E-commerce and New Retail is an untranslated Chinese book, exploring the evolution of e-commerce and new retailing, published in July 19, 2017 by China Renmin University Press, which proudly ranked one of the most essential publishing bases of textbooks and academic works in China. This book systematically introducing the e-commerce and retail business in the past, in the future and at present and innovatively constructing the economic analysis framework of e-commerce is regarded as a valuable reference for enterprises and researchers.

The ST is mainly about the successful experience and practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises and platforms, like Alibaba, Suning, Tmall, and so forth, analyzing the reasons their achievements. Featuring in authors’ intention of presenting to readers the valuable knowledge and experience of successful Chinese enterprises, the ST highlights the information the authors express, and correspondingly the translator’s intention on this version is to relay this information to foreign reader.

3.1.1.3Features of the ST

E-commerce is essentially the application of computer network technology in all kinds of economic fields. Therefore, in e-commerce English, in addition to a large number of technical terms related to computer technology and network technology, it also includes business and trade, advertising, and banking, retail, travel, publishing, securities and many other industries of professional vocabulary, as well as e-commerce itself (Fan Yong, 2007).

Specifically, the features of the ST can be separated into lexical feature, syntactic feature and syntactic feature as well. In terms of its lexical feature, terminologies, neologisms, proper nouns, jargon, verbs as well as four-character idioms are widely employed in the ST. As for its syntactic feature, verbs, non-subject sentences, positive voice, slogans, and long sentences as well are frequently involved in the ST. Apart from that, since advertisements are also part of the ST, metaphor is also applied in some sentences. Moreover, the discoursal feature of the text is unveiled by its inductive sentence structure.

Moreover, the ST characterized by its standardized and formal language of conciseness, plainness, clearness and objectiveness in style is regarded as an authorized book of e-commerce and new retail in a core attempt to convey the information. In other words, the ST belongs to informative text in accordance with Peter Newmark’s theory and the content of the ST should be given priority to in the TT, whereas though the information transmission is offered a dominant position in the process of translation, the form and style of the version are relevantly less important,  it doesn’t indicate that the style of the ST should be wholly overlooked, instead the style and form of the source text is also vital and should be maintained in the version in order to produce on TT readers an effect resembling to or similar with that of TT readers (Dang Tianqi, 2017).

3.1.2Tools and Plans of Translation

To ensure the completion of the translation project, various tools are involved in the process of translation:

(1)Electronic dictionaries for terminology searching: Lingoes;

(2)Search engines for terminology collection: Google and Baidu;

(3)Computer added translation tools: SDL MultiTerm 2010 Desktop, Tmxmall and Trados;

(4)Websites: JD.com, Tmall.com, Suning.com, Taobao.com, etc.;

(5)E-commerce related materials: books related to e-commerce and theses from CNKI.

Moreover, in order to ensure the successful completion of this report, a detailed arrangement of time has been designed after taking the difficulties and the consumption of time into account. And the time is scheduled as follows:

3.2Translation Process

The ST is an excerpt from the book, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, involving the language of different fields, such as computer science, business, Internet, finance etc. Thus, the first obstacle that the author should overcome is the lack of professional knowledge so that some expressions may be uncertain for the author. For instance, there are many abbreviations, such as B2B, C2C and B2C. To solve this problem, parallel texts and background information are collected as far as possible to ensure a proper understanding towards the ST.

Another vital problem is that since the ST is informative and long in sentences, even non-subject sentences and sentences with various verbs, it is difficult to deliver the meaning of ST to the TT readers logically and clearly. Therefore, during the process of translation, Peter Newmark’s communicative translation is applied to make the TT more understandable, fluent and clear to TT readers. Besides, slogans of e-commercial enterprises, such as “你敢付，我敢赔” are also hard to translate for that

it is concise  and comprehensive in  meaning,  neat  in form  and appealing in function.

Moreover, after reading the whole book including the excerpt, the author made effort to probe more translation methods and skills under the guidance of communicative translation via looking through the relevant references in CNKI. As a result with an

eye on achieving the purpose of communication, a number of translation methods are employed, such as amplification, transforming abstract words into concrete words, converting negative expressions to affirmative expressions and converting the word property and so forth.

Apart from that, as the ST is mainly about the innovative practice of China’s e-commercial enterprises, Chinese characterized words “ 剁手党”, “ 超级卖霸”, four-character idioms, such as “无所不能”, “无所不有” and “无所不及” and names of Chinese e-commerce platform like “ 京东” and “ 唯品会” and names of TV program, such as “爸爸去哪儿” are covered in the ST, hindering the understanding of TT readers are also huge barriers in the process of translation. As for this problem,

semantic translation and communicative translation are employed through which the TT presents more comprehensive information to readers.

In short, in the process of translation, various obstacles are overcome by the author under the guidance of Peter Newmark’s theory of communication translation and semantic translation.

3.3Quality Control

After finishing the first draft of translation, the three periods of revision began.  In the first period, translation tool Trados was employed to confirm the terminologies and the version was polished by the author. According to Peter Newmark’s theory, informative text should effectively convey the information of the readers, and, therefore, the TT should be correct and standardized in terms of terminologies. Thus, it is of great necessity to make a further confirmation since there are a great number of terms and proper nouns in this text.

In the second period the polished version was further checked by author’s teachers and classmates. This process is of vital importance as the understanding of translators is checked by teachers and classmates. And no matter communicative translation or semantic translation is concerned, a correct understanding of the source text should be highlighted at first.

During the third period, people of English and non-English speaking countries, teachers and students of English major, and cyber citizens are invited to give some assessments and feedback. The source text is an informative text which lays stress on target readers’ understanding of the information and is suitable for communicative translation. Therefore, the process of ensuring the understanding of target readers should be of paramount importance.

The following example is a fabulous evidence for the merits of three period. It should be explained that the TT-1 is the first revision by the author; TT-2, the second revision by one of the author’s classmates; TT-3, the third revision by an English reader.

Example 1 ST:

软硬一体模式:软硬一体是关键

TT-1:

Soft and Hard Integration Model: Focusing on the Value Combination of Soft Service and Hardware

TT-2:

Soft and Hard Service Integration Model: with the Combination of Soft Value and Hard Value as its Crux

TT-3:

Soft and Hard Service Model: with the Combination of Soft and Hard Value as its Crux

In the Example 1, the title “ 软硬一体模式: 软硬一体是关键” presents an

informative function, therefore, Peter Newmark’s communicative translation should be taken into account for the effective delivery of information and readers’ profound understanding of the TT. However, this title was translated into “Soft and Hard Integration Model: Focusing on the Value Combination of Soft Service and  Hardware” in the first version. In this version, two problems appeared due to authors inadequate understanding of this title. One is the expression of “soft and hard”. As “soft and hard” can be referred to not only soft and hard value, but also soft and hard

service, the expression of “soft and hard” may lead to the misunderstanding of target readers. The other is expression of “Focusing on the Value Combination of Soft Service and Hardware”. This expression is to some degree weakening or even different in part of the meaning of the ST, but for some reasons it is not noticed by the translator until the period of second revision. Therefore, the version was changed into “Soft and Hard Service Integration Model: with the Combination of Soft Value and Hard Value as its Crux” in the second revision, which is clearer in meaning and conforms to the focuses of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation. Finally, as readers understanding is of paramount significance for informative text in accordance with Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation, this version is also checked by English readers in the third period of revision. The author was suggested to omit some redundant words in order to make the title shorter and clearer. Hence, the third revision “Soft and Hard Service Model: with the Combination of Soft and Hard value as its Crux” is much better, as this translation is confirmed to be understandable to English readers and accord to the form of a title--being short. In other words, this version to some extent integrated with the merit of communicative translation and semantic translation is much better than previous versions.

In general, revision under the guidance of communicative translation is of great

necessity in the process of translating an informative e-commercial text. Translators to some extent are fallible, as they may be short in the knowledge base of a professional field, whereas revision can make up for their inadequacy. As a result, an understandable version can be provided to target readers and the information can be effectively conveyed.

Chapter Four Case Study

Translation methods should be selected according to the type of text, nature of  the readership and the purpose of translation according to Peter Newmark’s theory (Wang Jinhua, 2007). The Research of E-commerce and New Retail as an informative text is written to express and spread objective information about China’s e-commerce and new retail to readers. Therefore, communicative translation is wildly employed. Nevertheless, when one of the purposes of translation--introducing China’s e-commercial enterprises to readers is considered, semantic translation is also indispensable as semantic translation highlights the content of the ST. Apart from that, to remain the style of the text, semantic translation should also be involved. Of course, due to the wide range covered by the e-commercial text, there are inevitably a great many difficulties at the lexical level, at the syntactic level and at the discoursal level   in translation. Fortunately, skills are worked out by employing communicative translation and semantic translation.

What’s worth mentioning, according to Peter Newmark’s theory of

communicative translation and semantic translation, all kinds of translations in some extent can not be solely communicative or semantic (Peter Newmark, 2001: 62). Hence, the two translation methods mentioned in this report are not mutually exclusive, instead it is the method mentioned in the following examples that occupies a dominant position in that circumstance, and the method unmentioned plays a supplementary role.

4.1Translation Skills at the Lexical Level

E-commerce, a product of the Internet and commerce, embraces the features of both the Internet and commerce. And with the development of e-commerce, coinages, proper vocabularies are created, some of which have never been offered an official English translation. Nevertheless, just like not all language-cultures share similar terms for corresponding position of responsibility, which creates problems for translators (Eugene A. Nida, 2001: 7), there are some words in Chinese that can

hardly be translated into corresponding words in English. Thus, in an aim to offer TT readers the effects and feelings resembling to ST readers, the skills are employed under the guidance of communicative translation.

4.1.1Coinages

Retailing, resembling to other industries, has its own coinages. Since the retailing mainly serves for the public, a great number of common and interesting words composed of common words are created in this field. This kind of coinage is also involved in the ST, some of which are distinct from their denotations in meaning and have no corresponding words in English. In this case semantic translation may create  a meaning totally different from its true connotation. Therefore, in an effort to convey the meaning of ST to readers accurately, some translation skills, like such as transforming abstract words into concrete words, weakening the meaning of words, identifying the meaning of fallible coinages, are applied to reproduce the meaning of the words of the ST in accordance with Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation.

4.1.1.1Transforming Abstract Words into Concrete Words

Example 2 ST:

2015 年“双 11”，天猫与湖南卫视一起打造了一档属于剁手党的节目《天猫2015“双 11”狂欢节》。

TT:

On November 11, 2015 a TV program for shopaholics “Tmall 2015 ‘Double 11’ Carnival” was jointly designed by Tmall and Hunan Satellite TV (HNTV).

Chinese people are apt to have imaginal thinking, while English people incline to have abstract thinking (Wu Xiaolong & Ding Weimin, 2002 ). Therefore, some words in Chinese have no corresponding words in English. And if it is translated word for word, the translation may perplex readers. In this circumstance, communicative translation should be applied to convey the meaning efficaciously by neglecting the

literal meaning and presenting its exact connotation to target language readers. In example 2, the word “剁手党” here contains the image of the hand cutting, whereas its connotation has nothing to do with hands, instead this coinage refers to some people who frequently purchase stuffs. But in the target language, there isn’t any phrase about hand concerning this kind of crazy buyers, and it may engender lots of difficulties to TT readers if the image is directly kept in the TT. Hence, in accordance with communicative translation, the skill of transforming abstract words into concrete words should be employed. The connotative meaning should be revealed to readers to ensure a correct understanding, by transforming the abstract word “ 剁手党” into concrete word “shopaholics ” instead of “hand-cutting party”. And it is obvious that by employing communicative translation the target text is more understandable to readers.

4.1.1.2Weakening the Meaning of Words Example 3

ST:

通过“淘宝客”“淘宝直通车”“钻石展位”“超级卖霸”“淘代码”“阿里妈妈”等产品形式，同时加大广告、促销、品牌推广等方面的投入，持续刺激开放平台的整体参与率、活跃度和购买力，使网站流量和会员数量都得到了显著提升。

TT:

Moreover, the flow and the number of members in the website of Taobao were significantly elevated, as the overall participation rate, vigor and purchasing power of the open platforms were continuously accelerated, encouraged by various forms of products, such as “Taobao Spreader (an agent marketing platform)”, “Taobao Zhitongche (a charging promotion tool)”, “Diamond Booth (a platform for bidding the space of pictorial advertisements)”, “Super Seller（a platform for product display）”, “Tao Code (the code provided for searching products and stores)”, “Alimama (a big data-based marketing platform)”, together with the augmented investment in advertisements, sales promotion, brand promotion and so forth.

Sometimes it may be hard or impossible to find two words from Chinese andEnglish sharing a completely same connotation, since Chinese belongs to Sino-Tibetan language while English is part of Indo-European language. Therefore, communicative translation should be applied to convey the necessary information,  and under the guidance of communicative translation, the skill of weakening the meaning of words instead of word for word translation that may cause various confusions is applied to ensure the fundamental meaning of words is demonstrated in the version. In example 3, “超级卖霸” refers to the person who makes extraordinary

achievements in selling products. And the word “霸” always embodies “overlord”, or

something with overwhelming power. For instance, in Chinese “ 霸 主 ” means overlord, someone who has massive power over a large group of people. Thus, it is obvious that the degree of the word “霸”, is far more than “super”. Nevertheless, as a word totally equal to “卖霸” here can no be founded, communicative translation can be employed to ensure the connotative meaning of this word is relayed to TT readers by using the word “super” which is not weaker than the “霸”. In this way, it is evident that by employing communicative translation the meaning is conveyed to readers efficiently though the meaning is unavoidably weakened.

4.1.1.3Identifying the Meaning of Fallible Coinages Example 4

ST: 这一方式简化了在线零售平台的商品陈列层级，让淘宝用户更多地使用搜索去海淘……

TT: Consequently, this method, on the one hand, simplifying the tiers of displayed commodities in the online retail platform, contributed to the growth of Taobao users searching and purchasing oversea products...

As proper nouns are widely applied in the e-commercial text, it is of great necessity to identify the precise meaning of these nouns in order to relay an accurate version of this informative text to readers. Since information is this first priority in the informative e-commercial text, the form of language should not be the prevention of meaning expression. In this circumstance, communicative translation should be applied to demonstrate the actual meaning of “海淘” to TT readers.

In Chinese, characters together with the character “ 海 ” are always endowed the connotation of vastness or massiveness. For instance, “ 海量” is connected with the meaning of “great capacity for liquor”. Moreover, “海涵” refers to be magnanimous enough to forgive or tolerate. Therefore, “海淘” can easily be regarded as purchasing a large number of stuff, while actually it means purchasing oversea products in the

context of e-commerce language. In general, to provide TT readers the accurate information of the ST, communicative translation should be placed at a dominant position and the skill of identifying the meaning of fallible coinages should be  applied.

4.1.2Proper Nouns

There are a large number of proper vocabularies in the original text, including names of platforms, brands, e-commercial enterprises, etc., which may not be recognized by foreign readers. Hence, to achieve communicative intentions, communicative translation is also indispensable. Moreover, in a wish to further promote these platforms, brands, e-commercial enterprises in the world, semantic translation should be employed by keeping those names. Therefore, the combination of communicative translation and semantic translation can be applied by using transliteration to show those names to readers and explanation to give introductions to these names, so that the TT readers not only can obtain the knowledge of e-commerce but also get more acquainted with Chinese e-commerce platforms. In other words, the method of combining communicative translation with semantic translation is significant for the promotion of brands, platforms and enterprise, but also for the realization of the communicative intention.

4.1.2.1Literal Translation

Example 5 ST:

通过“淘宝客”，“淘宝直通车，“钻石展位”，“超级卖霸”，“淘代码”，“阿里

妈妈”等产品形式，同时加大广告、促销、品牌推广等方面的投入，持续刺激开

放平台的整体参与率、活跃度和购买力，使网站流量和会员数量都得到了显著提升。

TT:

Moreover, the flow and the number of members in the website of Taobao were significantly elevated, as the overall participation rate, vigor and purchasing power of the open platforms were continuously accelerated, encouraged by various forms of products, such as “Taobao Spreader (an agent marketing platform)”, “Taobao Zhitongche (a charging promotion tool)”, “Diamond Booth (a platform for bidding the space of pictorial advertisements)”, “Super Seller（a platform for product display）”, “Tao Code (the code provided for searching products and stores)”, “Alimama (a big data-based marketing platform)”, together with the augmented investment in advertisements, sales promotion, brand promotion and so forth.

In example 5, “ 淘宝客”, “ 钻石展位”, “ 超级卖霸”, “ 淘代码” are functions provided by Alibaba, but it may be hardly known by TT readers. Therefore, communicative translation and semantic translation are combined in translating these proper nouns, by literal translation the names and explanation, which not only ensure the loyalty to the ST, but also contribute to helping TT readers know more about these functions. Besides, it is also conducive to the promotion of those functions.

Besides, in the sentence above, communicative translation and communicative translation are also involved via employing transliteration and explanation. For instance, transliteration and explanation are combined to make the TT understandable and also to promote those platforms, in example 6 and example 7 below:

4.1.2.2Transliteration and Explanation

Example 6 ST：

“淘宝直通车”

TT:

“Taobao Zhitongche (a charging promotion tool)”

Example 7

ST:

“阿里妈妈”

TT:

“Alimama (a big data-based marketing platform)”

In Example 6 and Example 7, “淘宝直通车” and “阿里妈妈” are respectively a function and a platform of Taobao, not even  widely known by  some Chinese people let alone by English readers. According to communicative translation, the effective transmission of information is of vital importance, and a profound understanding of  TT is the most crucial requirement for information transmission, which, in other ways, indicates that it is unavoidable to provide some further illustration when necessary. Since English readers without background information may get into knot when “Taobao Zhitongche” and “Alimama” are mentioned, explanation is employed in translation in line with communicative translation. Moreover, in a purpose  of rendering Chinese platforms “ 淘宝直通车” and “ 阿里妈妈” familiar to target language readers, communicative translation is applied to retain the two names by transliteration. The corresponding expression of “ 直通车” can hardly be found in English, and there are transliterated names like “Taobao Zhitongche” and “Alimama” in their official website. In such cases, transliteration is deemed to be applied. Consequently, in accordance with communicative translation and semantic translation, the two proper nouns are respectively translated into “Alimama (a big data-based marketing platform)” and “Taobao Zhitongche” by transliteration and explanation, so that TT readers not only get familiar with the name-- Alimama, but also know what it is.

4.1.3The Four-character Idioms

The book, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, as research material, is formal and concise, so four-character idioms, as a result, four-character idioms appear frequently in the ST, which is hard to translate in some extent since there are no four-character idioms in English. In this case, communicative translation can be applied by flexibly adopting translation skills, such as converting abstract words into

concrete words, converting negative expressions to affirmative expressions and converting the word property to achieve the effective transmission of information, as the primary purpose of information-based texts is the transmission of information.

4.1.3.1Converting Abstract Words into Concrete Words

Example 8 ST:

此后随着互联网技术的进一步发展，居民消费习惯和消费行为发生翻天覆地

的变化……

TT:

Subsequently, with the further improvement of Internet technology, tremendous changes have appeared in the consumptive habits and behavior of residents...

Abstract images frequently exist in adjectives in Chinese, but not in English. Nevertheless, with this gap between Chinese adjectives and English adjectives, this kind of adjectives can not be translated into English literally. For instance, in example 9, the four-character idiom-- “翻天覆地” literally means “to overturn the sky and the earth”, while in line with the context it refers to tremendous changes, instead of talking about the concrete images. If it is translated literally, most of foreign readers without in-depth understanding of Chinese culture may feel perplexed. Hence, communicative translation which highly lays stress on the delivery of information can be employed to convert the concrete adjective “翻天覆地的” into the abstract word “tremendous”, through which connotative meaning of this four-character idiom is unveiled to TT readers and accurately understood.

4.1.3.2Transforming Negative Meaning into Positive Meaning

Example 9 ST:

阿里巴巴自成立以来，一直致力于打造一个无所不有、无所不能和无所不及

的开放电商平台……

TT:

Alibaba, since its inception, has been all along committed to creating an all-encompassing, all-pervasive and omnipotent open e-commerce platform...

As it is universally acknowledged that informative texts lay stress on the information conveyed by the author and the fundamental goal of this kind of text is to pose on the TT readers with the similar or same effects as that of ST readers (Yang Shizhuo, 1998). In example 10, “无” and “不” are regarded as negative expressions, nevertheless, it is far from understandable if the two negative characters in every four-character idioms are translated into negative words, like “nothing is not involved”, “nothing cannot be accomplished” or “nothing cannot be reached”. Therefore, to ensure a better understanding and achieve the communicative intention

of the text, “ 无 所 不 有 ” is translated into  “all-encompassing”; “ 无 所 不 能 ”, “omnipotent” and “ 无 所 不 及 ”, “all-pervasive”. With these expressions, overt understandings are far more accessible to TT readers.

4.1.3.3Transforming Verbs into Nouns Example 10

ST:

电子商务是信息技术发展的产物，由互联网技术与商业经济融合而生。

TT:

E-commerce is a product of information technology, deriving from the integration of the Internet technology and the business economy.

Chinese is a dynamic language while English is a static language. The informative e-commercial text also features in the usage of verbs. However, in accordance with Peter Newmark’s theory, as information should be given priority to  in the translation of informative texts, the version should conform with the way of expression in English, when translating the verbs into English. Therefore, some dynamic words in the source text are transformed into static words in the target text. For instance, in example 10, the verb “ 融合而生” is in correspondence with two verbs in English, respectively “integrate” and “produce”. Nonetheless, as a static language, English tends to apply more nouns than verbs. Thus, in line with semant translation the verb “integrate” is converted into the noun “integration” to follow the way of English expression.

In short, as there are a great number of coinages, proper nouns and four-character idioms in e-commercial text, causing various difficulties for e-commerce translation, in order to ensure readers’ understanding in line with Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and the purpose of translation--introducing China’s e-commercial enterprises to TT readers, the following skills are confirmed to be valid: transforming abstract words into concrete words, weakening the meaning of words, identifying the meaning of fallible coinages, conforming to the context, transliteration and explanation, converting negative words into active words and converting verbs into nouns.

4.2Translation Skills at the Syntactic Level

Apart from the translation of vocabularies, the translation of sentences in the ST is also of leading importance. The ST mainly features in its slogans of China’s e-commercial enterprises, frequent use of verbs plus object structures and active voice all of which are of unique Chinese features that TT readers may feel confused. Nonetheless, as informative text focuses on the information, communicative translation and should be employed by the skills of the conversion of the part of speech, the change of voices, and so forth.

4.2.1Slogan

Slogan, an effective way for attracting consumers, is a kind of advertising language, frequently presenting in e-commercial texts. It features in attractiveness-- catching readers’ attention, creativeness--projecting an image, persuasiveness--urging readers to act, and impressiveness--producing impacts (Ding Hengqi, 2004). So, it can be regarded as a type of vocative text in line with Peter Newmark’s division of text type, which is reader-centered. Therefore, the priority should be given to stimulate readers’ reaction. Thus, the communicative translation should be employed to presentthe readability and the attractiveness. Example 11 is a slogan launched by Alipay. In 2017, CEO of Ant Financial Services Group made this commitment to tens of millions of business people on the 2017 Internet Security Summit, which brought a mounting number of users to the platform of Alipay. Thus, this slogan is of great significance.

Example 11 ST:

“你敢付，我敢赔”

TT-1:

You dare to pay; I dare to compensate.

TT:

You dare to use; I dare to lose.

According to Newmark’s communicative translation, the reader should be provided the inspiration as close as the feeling of ST readers can obtain. So the characteristics of slogans should be reproduced in the translation. Compared with first version, the revised version is much more impressive and attractive. On the one hand, a pair of rhyming words used in the expression and the same number of syllables, the sentence is clearer and briefer. On the other hand, since the slogan is designed for business people, the language should be common and simple, and apparently, revised version is more compliant to business people than the first version.

The fundamental method of translation is to approach the target language and exploit the advantages of target language to the full (Ye Zinan, 2013: 10). The revised version, under the guidance of communicative translation, flexibly taking the advantage of English to sound coordination on rhythms and syllables, is more understandable, impressive and attractive for readers to use Alipay. In short, the skill of taking the advantage of rhythms and syllables is in accordance with Peter Newmark’s communicative translation and is significant in translating slogans in e-commercial texts.

4.2.2Verb Plus Object Structures

There are many long sentences with verb plus object structures in the ST whichaccord with the way of expression in Chinese. Nevertheless, English is a Static and dynamic language (Peng Ping, 2009). Under the guidance of Peter Newmark’s communicative translation, dynamic Chinese sentences should be converted into static language in English in accordance with the structural features of English sentence in order to render the TT more fluent and understandable to TT readers.

Example 12 ST:

阿里巴巴不断完善电商生态，同时依托支付宝业务加速布局线下场景支付，

还通过与银泰、苏宁等线下零售巨头合作实现线上线下流量交互，逐步打造贯通线上线下的零售生态。

TT:

In spite of constant effort made to improve e-commerce ecology, Alibaba’s distribution of offline payment in virtue of Alipay is also accelerated coinstantaneously, and after joining forces with Yintai, Suning and some other giant retailers interaction online and offline, Alibaba has gradually constructed a retail ecology both online and offline.

In example 12, verbs are widely used, such as “完善”, “依托”, “加速”, “布局”,

“ 合 作 ” and “ 打 造 ”.  If the sentence is  translated literally, the unclear logical connection may be bewildered TT readers. Hence, in order to maintain the fluency  and cohesiveness of the version, the skill of converting dynamic Chinese sentences into static language in English should be employed and the sentence is mainly translated into main clause and subordinate clauses. Specifically speaking, the sentence “阿里巴巴不断完善电商生态” is regrouped as an adverbial clause “In spite of constant effort made to improve e-commerce ecology”. What’s  more, the sentence “逐步打造贯通线上线下的零售生态” is translated as a postpositive attributive.

4.2.3Sentences of Active Voice

Negative voices like “ 被 … … ” are seldom used in Chinese according to the expression habit of Chinese people, and it is often replaced by words, like“受”, “由”,“予以”, and so forth (Xie Bingye, 2017). Nonetheless, in English it is normal to find negative sentences in some materials, especially in formal texts such as scientific research, text books, etc. The informative e-commercial text is a research-oriented work, and thus the style is formal. So, in line with Peter Newmark’s theory of communicative translation, the positive voices in Chinese should be converted into  the negative voices in English as far as possible so as to meet the idiomaticity of

formal text in English.

Example 13:

ST:

总体而言，我国电子商务企业创新实践大致有如下规律:

TT-1:

In general, the innovative practice of e-commercial enterprises in China has the following rules:

TT:

In general, the innovative practice of e-commercial enterprises is generally characterized by the following rules:

Translation is not only a transformation of languages but a behavior of communication (Li Changshuang, 2008: 10) . The different ways of expression may impede the communication. Thus, in an aim to make the TT conform with the way of writing formal text in English, communicative translation should be applied by translating these sentences in negative voice, like the final version. Therefore, it can be proved that the skill of converting positive voice into negative voice can be of  great importance in e-commercial text translation.

Example 14 ST:

阿里巴巴是国内开放平台模式的先驱。

TT:

Alibaba is placed as the forerunner of China’s open platform model.

Similarly, in example 14, instead of narrating “Alibaba is the forerunner of China’s open platform model”, the sentence is translated into “Alibaba is placed as theforerunner of China’s open platform model”, more objective indicating the influential position of Alibaba in China’s open platform model. In this case, the connotative idea of the ST can be efficiently grasped by target readers. And it is apparent that by communicative translation, the expression is much more in keeping with the rule of formal English expressions and the information in the ST is more accessible to readers.

To conclude, in syntactic level slogans, verb plus object structures and sentences of active voice are widely involved in e-commercial text, bringing about great obstacles for e-commercial text translation, and in these circumstances, the model of communicative translation as its core, supplemented by semantic translation is of significant help in guiding the translation by employing the following strategy and skills: free translation, conversion verbs into nouns and converting active voice into negative voice.

4.3Translation Skills at the Discoursal level

In the ST, long discourses without conjunctions and discourses consisting of long sentences are frequently involved giving rise to the difficulties of translation, as there are differences in the sentence arrangement between Chinese and English. Therefore, if the ST is translated literally, confusions or misunderstandings may occur to TT readers which run counter to Peter Newmark’s communicative translation. Consequently, to probe efficacious ways for ensuring readers understanding is of paramount importance.

4.3.1Long Discoursal without Conjunctions

Coherence is what a discourse is equipped with (Mona Baker, 2000). However, Chinese is a language of parataxis, while English is more a language of hypotaxis. As a result, there may be no conjunctions even in a long Chinese discourse, whereas in English conjunctions are frequently employed for sentence connection in a discourse. Therefore, if a long discourse is translated without conjunctions, target readers mayfeel confused with the logic while reading. So, communicative translation is applied by the amplification of conjunctions so as to make the TT logically explicit for target language readers.

Example 15 ST：

总的来说，京东集团坚持技术创新驱动，依托云计算、大数据、人工智能等

新兴技术加强对自营电商业务的改造和提升，使得京东电商平台的网络效应和学习效应快速扩大，供应链整合能力越来越强，用户和平台相融共生、互相依赖， 形成了以智能供应链为主导，智慧物流、智能云产业、供应链金融等相互映衬的综合型开放电商平台。

TT:

In general, with a commitment of driving the development with technological innovation, JD. group, basing on cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and some other emerging technologies, accelerates the improvement of self-operated e-commerce business. As a result, the network effect and learning effect of its platform are expanded swiftly, and therefore, the ability of supply chains integration and the harmonious and interdependent relationship between users and the platform is established. Consequently, a comprehensive and inclusive e-commerce platform dominated by intelligent supply chains and covering intelligent logistics, intelligent cloud industry and supply chain finance comes to a realization.

Conjunction is an applicable way to achieve cohesion(Halliday, M.A.K. & Hasan, R., 2001). In example 15, there is not any conjunction in the ST. If such a long sentence is translated into English literally, readers are probably confused with the meaning, let alone obtain the information effectively. In this case, communicative translation would be helpful for figuring out the logical connections by using conjunctions. Under the guidance of communicative translation, translators are endowed the right to make adjustments for figuring out the logical connections in a long sentence (Li Guiping, 2010:159-160). In example 16, according to communicative translation, to achieve the fluency and present TT readers a clear understanding, conjunctions, such as “and”, “and therefore”, and “Consequently” areadded in an aim to demonstrate the relationships between sentences, though no words corresponding to these conjunctions appeared in the source text of the two examples. Hence it is obvious that the amplification of conjunctions can ensure the version logically clear and therefore should be employed into e-commercial text translation.

4.3.2Discourse Consisting of Long Sentences

As a language of hypotaxis, Chinese is always implicit in logic, whereas  the logic of English is always explicit. This feature is also reflected by the discourses consisting of long sentences in e-commercial texts, whose logic is always explicit.  The ST demonstrating a research of innovative practice of China’s e-commercial text can be generally regarded as a research-oriented informative text, featuring in its strictness in logic, whereas the logic connection is arranged in line with the meaning of the sentences. If the TT is arranged via literal translation, the sentences will be too long to be understood by readers. Therefore, the ST can be translated under the guidance of communicative translation by flexibly employing the method of splitting to ensure the effective understanding of readers.

Example 16 ST:

随着互联网技术的快速发展，大数据、云计算、人工智能等新兴技术层出不穷，由互联网技术衍生的产品和服务越来越多，传统经济的商业模式、交易方式、流通方式、供给方式发生了翻天覆地的变化，逐步形成以技术创新为主线、融合共生的互联网经济模式。就电商零售而言，它是互联网技术与传统零售融合发展的产物，随着融合程度的加深，零售产业链边界越来越模糊，零售业态结构越来越多元，零售要素之间的关系越来越复杂，电子商务由早期的电子零售交易新手段逐渐演变为现代零售赖以生存发展的环境或者土壤，新经济环境下零售业所有要素既相互依赖又相互产生关系，形成了新的产品形式和服务形态，为新商业生态注入新的营养要素和内在动力，产生可持续、难以复制的爆发力和生命力。目前国内主要有三种模式：以阿里巴巴为代表的开放平台模式、以京东为代表的自营电商模式以及以乐视为代表的软硬一体模式。

TT:

The rapid development of Internet technology and the continuous emergence of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence accelerate the generation of products and services derived from Internet technology, and boost the breathtaking changes of the business model and the mode of transaction, circulation and supply of traditional economy. As a result, a syncretic and symbiotic model of the Internet economy has gradually been developed with technological innovation as its thread. For instance, e-commerce retail, as the derivative of Internet technology and traditional retail, influenced by the deepening of convergence, is increasingly vague in the boundary of its industry chains, increasingly diverse in its format structure and progressively complicated in its essential elements. Therefore, e-commerce, the merging means of early electronic retail (hereafter called “e-retail”) transactions, has gradually evolved into an indispensable means of the survival and development of modern retail enterprises. Besides, the interrelated relationship of retail elements in the new economic environment brings about new forms of products and services, supporting the merging business ecology and providing sustainable and unique momentum and vitality. Currently, there are mainly three models in China: the open platform model represented by Alibaba, the self-operated e-commerce model represented by JD. and the soft-hard integration model represented by LeEco.

Discourses consisting of long sentences are quite common in e-commercial texts.

In Example 16, there are 370 words, but only three sentences and these sentences are extraordinarily long. If the translator retains the syntactic structure of the original text, confusions may be engendered to TT readers. Therefore, in order to ensure that the target language readers can better understand the translated information, the communicative translation method is adopted via employing the method of splitting. As it is shown in the translation of Example 16, the long sentences into several short

sentences.

In conclusion, in informative e-commercial text communicative translation should be mainly employed to ensure the effective transmission of information, and as discourses without conjunctions and discourses consisting of long sentences are widely employed in e-commercial text, the skills of amplification and splitting is convinced to be effective.

Through the specific case study, the applicability of the translation methods and skills for e-commercial text translation under the guidance of Peter Newmerk’s theory of communicative translation and semantic translation are confirmed. And the translation model for the ST--taking communicative translation as its core supplemented by semantic translation is also of significant value for informative e-commercial text translation.

Chapter Five Conclusion

The combination of communicative translation and semantic translation greatly contribute to offering readers a fabulous version. The model with communicative translation as its core, supplemented by semantic translation is a fabulous for the translation of the informative e-commercial text. For one thing, this model  underlining the effective delivery of information can offer readers the information and knowledge about e-commerce in the ST. For another, this model also attaches profound importance to the specificity in writing techniques and points of styles, and the social context of its reception by the leadership of both SL and TL which play a vital role in providing TL readers the feeling that SL readers can obtain (MIU Alina, 2010). In this case, TL readers can catch an in-depth understanding of the innovative practice made by China’ s e-commercial enterprises. What’s more, as communicative translation method is not opposite to semantic translation method, the mission of translator is to probe the balance between communicative translation and semantic translation in the information-oriented e-commercial text, and then explore the skills to solve the problem in the process of translation.

5.1Major Findings

Through the translation practice and the analyses of this report, the findings can be summarized as below:

First of all, e-commercial text as a branch of business, not only involves the characteristics of business texts, but also embraces its’ own characteristics. Especially in terms of terminologies, proper nouns, the differences between e-commercial texts and other texts are the most distinct. Therefore, it is of great necessity for making specialized research in this field.

Secondly, the model of taking communicative translation as its core, supplemented by semantic translation is of profound value in guiding  the translation of informative e-commercial texts, since e-commercial texts accentuate readers understanding. This model covers both the merits of communicative translation andsemantic translation. And as in informative texts, the communicative function is highly stressed, giving priority readers understanding is of paramount significance.

Thirdly, in translation, it is very crucial to distinguish the function of the texts and master the purpose of translation and the nature of readers. The function of text is a priority factor before translation, but the choice of strategy and method of text translation depends not merely on the function of the text. Sometimes the choice of translation purposes needs to take the purpose of translation into account. Therefore, translation methods should be carefully judged by translators.

Finally, during the process of translation, the author found that there are a great number of terminologies and proper nouns common in e-commercial text but may no be understood or misinterpreted by others. To solve this problem, dictionaries, websites and search engines such as Lingoes, JD.com and Google are helpful for collecting and understanding terminologies and proper nouns. Moreover, the contextual meaning should also be kept an eye on.

5.2Limitations and Suggestions

In terms of limitations, although the translation practice has been completed through continuous revision and refinement, it is believed that there may be still some shortcomings in the version and as the author in shortage of professional knowledge  in the field of e-commerce there may be a lack of profound understanding toward e-commerce. Although the translation requirement of 150000 words has been finished by the author, a broader horizon in many fields is still urgently needed.

Moreover, the research object of this project is inadequate. The study of more than 10,000 words in a book is not enough to find and summarize all the specific translation skills and methods of e-commercial texts. What’s more, as a non-English speaker without profound language background, the author may be insufficient in perfectly conveying some expressions. Hence, some expressions in TT may be improvable, such as the slogan “You dare to use; I dare to lose” .

Therefore, as for suggestions, on the one hand, to make research one-commercial texts, researchers should enrich their background information to ensure a correct understanding of the ST and convey the information to TT readers effectively. On the other hand, research material should be as more as possible in order to ensure all the factors and difficulties of e-commercial text translation are taken into account in the research.

Hopefully, the translation study on the base of e-commercial texts can be attached more importance and this report will provide reference for the further study of e-commercial text translation.

References

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London/New York: Routledge.

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Appendix B

The Target Text

The Source Text, covering 12901 words, is the introduction and first section of the 9th chapter of the book, The Research of E-commerce and New Retail, written by Li Zhengbo and Qiu Qiong and published by China Renmin University Press in 2017.

Chapter 9 The Innovative Practice of China’s e-commercial

enterprises

E-commerce is a product of information technology, deriving from the integration of the Internet technology and the business economy. With the establishment of Alibaba in 1999, China has witnessed an increasingly in-depth integration of the Internet technology and the business economy. E-commerce in its process of development has transformed from the primary e-commerce, involving Internet application services, online transaction and network marketing, to the e-commercial industry ecology of the whole industry chain, integrating technology research and development, with brand promotion, online transactions, marketing services, and financial management. From the perspective of the retailing, the earliest and most representative retail e-commerce mode in China is led by Alibaba Group  and JD. (JD.COM). The former is in an effort to reconstruct the Internet thinking; the latter represents the commercial pattern based on the traditional retail business by the application of Internet technology or tools. Subsequently, with the further improvement of Internet technology, tremendous changes have appeared in the consumptive habits and behavior of residents. And all the e-commercial enterprises revolving around the demand and technology of consumption and simulating the pattern of Alibaba and JD. have experienced various fission and fusion. Consequently, China has embraced a constant optimization in its e-commerce industry chain, an endless stream of new commercial patterns, swift progress in professional vertical electricity supplier and an incremental improvement in the e-commerce support system. As a result, e-commerce plays a leading role in the transformation and upgrading of China’s traditional retail.

Throughout the history of China’s e-commercial enterprises, e-commercial retail, in spite of its patterns, all along centers on the essence of business economy,

integrating, optimizing and upgrading all factors of retailing with Internet technology to create a new e-commerce retail ecology, capture the superiority of the new ecology and eventually formulate a core competitiveness. Comprehensive e-commerce integrating all of the elements, special mode e-commerce integrating the whole industrial chain, industrial vertical e-commerce integrating the factors of products, community e-commerce integrating customers, as well as rural and cross-border e-commerce integrating regional economy all involves e-commerce integration. In general, the innovative practice of e-commercial enterprises is generally characterized by the following rules:

(1)Technological convergence is the thread. New product forms and e-commerce patterns will be created as long as an element in traditional economy is incorporated into Internet technology. For instance, the Alipay-based e-commerce ecology is created by converging Internet technology with payment and settlement; JD. intelligent logistics, by integrating with logistics and warehousing; Xiaomi fan pattern, by merging with social marketing; rural e-commerce pattern represented by Lecuntao, by combining with rural economy; LeEco soft-hard integration model, by coalescing video culture industry, etc. In other words, the Internet is not only a tool but also a method, and it is imperative to carry out the transformation of traditional economy on the base of Internet technology, which will result in immeasurable outcomes.

(2)Openness and coordination are the main body. The openness of e-commerce platform blurs not only the industrial boundaries of traditional retail, but also the boundaries of virtuality and reality, products and services, consumption and production, and so forth. Resources, in e-commercial circumstance, all equally open  to retailers, which are included in a certain economic body, but not only bounded by any economic body. All the economic bodies, taking they advantages of resources, interact and share with others to generate their own economic profits, giving birth to intermingle and symbiotic new economic ecosystem. For instance, in terms of comprehensive platform, there are cloud service ecology, large financial service ecology and Cainiao logistics ecology of Alibaba, open supply chain ecology and intelligent cloud ecology of JD. Moreover, in the vertical field, community e-commerce model, led by Meilishuo( a brand for white-collar women consumers in China) and Mogujie(an e-commerce website for fashionable women consumers in China), and the customized household furnishing model of Shangpin Home Collection, with cloud design as its core competitiveness, etc.(3)Returning back to business is the essence. Taking the traditional retailing for example, supply chain management is still the top priority to e-commerce retail enterprises. Accordingly, where there is the dominance of supply chain, where there is the supreme superiority. For example, VIPSHOP, fusing the Outlets model of traditional retail with Internet gene to bridge direct supply channels between manufacturers and consumers, captured the dominance of supply chain, and therefore, is ranked as the top 1 online outlet for brand-name products in China’s business to customer (B2C) e-commerce platform. Handu Group, combining its own brand operation with Internet gene, formulated an efficient and flexible supply chain system with fixed production on demand that formed its core competitiveness of internal impetus, and consequently becomes the top 1 Internet mcfashion clothing brand in China. Ymatou is an example of incorporating the traditional buyer model into Internet gene to grasp the shopping scene oversea via real-time communication.

(4)Transformation and upgrading are in need. With the increasingly perfect ecological environment of e-commerce, the development pattern of comprehensive e-commerce leading by Alibaba, JD, Suning (one of the biggest non-government retailers in China, formerly named Suning Commerce Group Co., Ltd.) in amity with vertical e-commerce in the field of industries, groups and regions has initially formed at present. Nevertheless, China’s e-commercial enterprises are confronting with quite burdensome pressure in transformation as the free, eyeball and scale effects of e-commerce platforms have gradually weakened by customers’ incremental rationality in demand and rapid change of Internet technology. Recent years, cloud computing and big data are developed vigorously by Alibaba and JD, in an effort to eliminate the obstacles in the integration of e-commerce with traditional economy. Vertical e-commercial enterprises trapped by high cost and the customer churn, such as Redbaby and Hot Mom Band, mainly have their transformation and upgrading in content supplementation and user experience optimization supported by technological innovation.

In conclusion, integration, openness and business are the keys to e-commerce, and technological innovation, the eternal topic, transformation and upgrading, outcome impelled by the circumstances. The past two decades contribute to a transformation of e-commerce from the competition of model to technology. Whoever embracing a better fusion of technology and traditional economy and swifter update obtains the predominance under the circumstance of new economy. In this chapter, the author revolving around the innovative practice of e-commercial enterprises andtaking 16 typical and representative cases of China’s e-commercial enterprises in comprehensive and vertical fields as examples summarizes the rule of development of China’s e-commercial enterprises from the perspectives of the orientation of technology convergence, innovation of e-commerce mode and e-commerce of industries, communities as well as regions, and then make analyses on the innovative practice of each e-commerce enterprise, aiming to give significant reference for industry peers.

1. Technological Convergence for the Construction of Open Cloud Service Ecology

The rapid development of Internet technology and the continuous emergence of new technologies such as big data, cloud computing and artificial intelligence accelerate the generation of products and services derived from Internet technology, and boost the breathtaking changes of the business model and the mode of transaction, circulation and supply of traditional economy. As a result, a syncretic and symbiotic model of the Internet economy has gradually been developed with technological innovation as its thread. For instance, e-commerce retail, as the derivative of Internet technology and traditional retail, influenced by the deepening of convergence, is increasingly vague in the boundary of its industry chains, increasingly diverse in its format structure and progressively complicated in its essential elements. Therefore, e-commerce, the merging means of early electronic retail (hereafter called “e-retail”) transactions, has gradually evolved into an indispensable means of the survival and development of modern retail enterprises. Besides, the interrelated relationship of retail elements in the new economic environment brings about new forms of products and services, supporting the merging business ecology and providing sustainable and unique momentum and vitality. Currently, there are mainly three models in China: the open platform model represented by Alibaba, the self-operated e-commerce model represented by JD. and the soft-hard integration model represented by LeEco.

(1)The Open Platform Model: Giving Priority to Eco-environment Construction

The open platform model is an e-commerce model taking he large-scale revenue management of online trading platform as its strategic core, aiming at  providing online trading opportunities and conditions to buyers and sellers and generally featuring in “platform construction and investment attraction”. In the light of the essence of business, all the key retailing factors (products, tunnels, transactions, circulation, and customers) of an open platform exist independently, but interdependent and harmonious on the account of soil and environment. In an open

platform, the platform itself is not involved in product trading, but all the stakeholders of the industrial chain are gathered in the platform as a result of its functions and impacts. That is to say, open platform is a sort of commercial infrastructure or the soil for adding business value, in which the fundamental elements are no longer commodities or services, but the business flow--users. The core value of the platform lies in promoting the successful docking of business or information flow between the two parties in transaction activities and bringing value enhancement or demand satisfaction to both sides. Hence, the key point of open platform management rests with the construction of eco-environment -- the stickiness of platform to business flow or information flow, involving not only the effects of scale, network, learning and some other natural genes of Internet platforms, but also the mechanisms of network transaction, information security, wealth appreciation, and some relevant technological innovation.

Alibaba is placed as the forerunner of China’s open platform model. Early in 1999 when Alibaba was just established, its open platform, taking the advantages of the natural genes of Internet and the free model of eBay, promptly swept across the early e-commerce flow of the country, attracting numerous owners of small and medium-sized enterprises and self-employed person to conduct transactions on the platform. In 2003, Taobao, a giant online retail platform, was established, followed by a mounting number of users gathered in the open platform, increasing widespread impacts of its learning effect, the springing up of various kinds of e-commerce websites, and cutting of its superiority in scale effect. Accordingly, the distinct superiority became growingly vital. Since 2004, Alibaba has set out its journey to  seek for a supportive environment for Internet retail: In 2004 Alipay service was launched and provided to all websites in an all-round way in 2005. In 2007 Ali Soft Company was founded, aiming to build China's leading online soft service provider for small and medium-sized enterprises. In 2008, Taobao was split into Taobao Network and Taobao Mall, and the "free + charge" profit model was adopted to ensure the stability of flow. In September of the same year Taobao was integrated with Alimama and the “Big Taobao” strategy was carried out on a large scale. In 2009, Ali Cloud Technology Company was established. In 2010 Etao website was launched, relying on the existing user flow and newly added search flow on the e-commerce platform to build a giant shopping guide platform. Since 2013, Alibaba has accumulated a large amount of data flow and information flow in the fields of offline retailing, finance, advertising, search, mobile, social networking and logistics bymeans of merging, integration and self-construction. At the same time, backing on the Ali cloud service capability, Alibaba, serving all stakeholders in the industrial chain with One-stop services, such as large data precision marketing, Internet finance, open logistics, e-commerce integrated solutions, has become the largest and most  influential open e-commerce platform in China.

All in all, traditional economic model has subverted by the open platform model represented by Alibaba in an aim to construct an open and sustainable system of the Internet economy with technological innovation as its dominance and integration as  its thread through employing Internet thinking to reconstruct economic relationships, Internet technology to improve business infrastructures of traditional economy, and Internet resources to integrate key components of traditional economy. Meanwhile, supported by this ecosystem, a management carrier of extensive and cross-industrial hybrid alliance was constructed. In virtue of the resources with covert values in different industry by means of leverage, graft, integration and utilization, and activating the proliferative and radiating capacity, the model creates favorable circumstances for value exchange, consolidating its foundation and building an exchanging and mutual-beneficial mechanism for valuable resources in conformity with the strategical needs all parties in the alliance to formulate comparative competitive advantages and gain a core competitiveness relatively unparalleled.

(2)Self-operated E-commerce Model: Centering on Supply Chain Management

The self-operated e-commerce model can be regarded as the onlineization of the traditional retailing, covering all aspects of traditional retail production, channels, logistics and terminal retail, including all retail elements such as products, channels, transactions, circulation, and customers. Still, self-operated e-commerce has its essence on business, with commodities and services as its basic elements. In other words, online retailing conclude the transactions through the medium of the Internet, giving birth to the integration of product manufacturing and brand management, payment, logistics and distribution, and after-sales supply chains for online transactions. As a virtual retailing method, self-operated e-commerce model, like traditional retailing models, revolves around the comprehensive capability—the one who acts dominantly in the supply chain will be the leader of this industry.

The best representative among all the self-operated e-commerce companies in China, JD, is an example of laying core competitiveness in marvelous capability of supply chain integration. The first one is the integration of product flow. To ensure the quality of products, JD. only cooperates with manufacturers and agent designed by

manufacturers. It is claimed that over 90% of JD's self-operated products are directly purchased from manufacturers, and the rest are also from the general agent. Such a cooperative model of directly integrating upstream supplier swiftly unveils its channel advantages of 3C categories and book categories. Together with the aggregate effect  of the Internet platform, JD. quickly occupied a large market share in the online retail market. Increasing influenced by the network effect and learning effect, JD. gradually expands its business categories to the whole category, attracting more and more settlement of third-party merchants and forming a self-operated supplement business model supplemented by joint-operation.

The second one involves information flow. JD., supported by a set of efficient, accurate and highly controllable back-end information system, can achieve real-time docking with supplier systems and respond to front-end orders and back-end  inventory on time. In addition, a perfect after-sales service system is also developed, utilizing big data mining technology to get acquaintance with the opinions and needs of consumers and suppliers timely.

The third one refers to the integration of logistics resources. Since 2008, JD’s large-scope distribution systems have been constructed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, actively introducing high-tech logistics technologies such as intelligent warehousing and sorting. Meanwhile, with efforts to seek for the third party logistics outsourcing, JD’s self-picking service stations are set in a great number of first and second tier cities, with a laying out strategy of “the last kilometer”( emphasizing the last stage), relying on big data, cloud computing. Consequently, the optimization of logistics path, intelligent response to distribution and other special services comes to the realization, providing JD. a leading role in intelligent logistics network in Asia and even the whole world. The fourth one is the integration of capital flow. Since  launched, various payment methods such as the cash payment, cash on  delivery, online payment, bank wire transfer, post office remittance and the company transfer have been delivered in JD’s platform. Recent years, in cooperation with Tencent, JD. has extended its service to Wechat payment and started some Internet finance such as JD. Baitiao(an online tool of loan service ) as well as Jingbaobei(a fast financing tool). Presently a one-stop flow of funds for payment, loans, investment, and wealth management has been established.

In general, with a commitment of driving the development with technological innovation, JD. group, basing on cloud computing, big data, artificial intelligence, and some other emerging technologies, accelerates the improvement of self-operatede-commerce business. As a result, the network effect and learning effect of its platform are expanded swiftly, and therefore, the ability of supply chains integration and the harmonious and interdependent relationship between users and the platform is established. Consequently, a comprehensive and inclusive e-commerce platform dominated by intelligent supply chains and covering intelligent logistics, intelligent cloud industry and supply chain finance comes to a realization.

(3)Soft and Hard Service Model: with the Combination of Soft and Hard Value as its Crux

Soft and hard service model, also named the virtual and real service model,  refers to the superposition of products and services. As an outcome of the Internet economy and the traditional economy, this model, resorting to the market of comprehensively needed products (like cars, mobile phones, clothing, shoes and hats, etc.) in traditional economy, bridges the value connection between soft service with the products by means of Internet technologies. Then, after superimposing the supply resources of the traditional economy with the demanded resources in the Internet economy, a new market of demand and a new system of industrial value chain are bounded to take shape. In the business model of soft and hard integration, “hard” refers to the fundamental elements, favorable to the target customers and consolidate the service system, while “soft” means the value extension, not only an engine for the promotion of consumer demand management but also the a sustainable source for value recreation of the enterprises. The core value of this model lies in the construction of value correlation between the soft and the hard. After a product’s vertical integration whole industrial chain system is independently possessed, all the nodes of industry chain can be connected more comprehensively to effectively present the aggregate effect. Companies such as Apple, Google, and Amazon are pioneers in the business model of integrating soft service with hard service.

LeEco group is a typical representative of soft and hard business model in China. LeTV, at the beginning of its establishment in 2004, was mainly a video website, swiftly obtaining a position in China’s video website industry with its unique copyright distribution model. In 2011, when the research and development of video application was conducted by the company, the first application development platform of smart TV was then launched in China. In 2013, after the conversion from video content to TV set out to be implemented, the multiple interfaces in one technology code named “ScreensPlay” and the Le Super TV was launched. In 2014, Le Cloud Computing Company was established, offering cloud computing service which is now

provided in most e-commerce websites. LeEco group started from a single point, extending from the primary video content to hardware products such as TV, mobile phones, automobiles, with which video application store and cloud video services are developed to offer the whole chain service of the culture industry and initially accomplish the commercial closed loop of the soft and hard integrated model.

For example, LeTV with the accumulated media customer base and cloud video technology provides cloud services for customers in the field of e-commerce, education, games, and so forth, and simultaneously acquires their content authorization. Accordingly, the bargain methods and content of cloud video services are profoundly enlarged, bringing more premiums and opportunity to be wealthy.

In short, LeEco Group is the pioneer of China’s soft and hard service model. At present, the soft and hard integrated business model, combining Le super TV with TV application services, and cloud video with video content has taken its shape with definite superiority in China’s video industry. And the terminal carriers of television, cellphone, car and so forth themed on scenes of domesticity are to be developed in the future, and with cloud video service to connect all links of the industrial chain gradually, cultural industry ecology of quaternity -- “platform + terminal + content + application” will be constructed.

Case 9-1 Alibaba --Open and Converged Cloud Service Ecology

Alibaba, since its inception, has been all along committed to creating an all-encompassing, all-pervasive and omnipotent open e-commerce platform, fusing  the flow of business, capital, information with logistics via continuous innovation of model, mechanism and technology , to create an Internet economy combination of superb capabilities of resource aggregation, value recreation as well as marketing and promotion. Consequently, a vertical and horizontal service, covering inclusive, customized as well as sustainable service, and service of transaction, payment, marketing and technology, is provided for all entities in supply chain (including customers, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, etc.), completely upending the model of traditional economy and opening a new chapter for the model of Internet economy.

1.Model Innovation: Establishing Internet Exchange Platform

Early as Alibaba Group was preliminarily established, a series of free policy was pursued by the initiator Jack Ma to attract the participation of large and medium-sized enterprises and individual merchants, and by the end of 2001, there were a total of more than 1 million enterprises registered in Alibaba’s platform, whereas Alibaba was still an intermediary website for enterprises at that moment without any transaction onthe Internet. The policy was kept in 2003 when Taobao was formally founded, generating an overwhelming market attractiveness. Therefore, Taobao soon leaped to the fastest growing C2C trading platform, taking the place of eBay of auction commission model, and enjoying the largest share of China’s C2C market by 2008.

As a result of the constant expansion market share and the gradual maturity of online retailing market, the expansion model relying on the free mode to cover the market met its bottleneck in the process of development. Thus, Taobao was separated into Taobao and Taobao Mall. The permanent free policy was still kept in the former, but some of the premium members in the later were exceptions, for example members of top-ranking search rate and members of registered enterprise identity certification. Moreover, the flow and the number of members in the website of Taobao were significantly elevated, as the overall participation rate, vigor and purchasing power of the open platforms were continuously accelerated, encouraged by various forms of products, such as “Taobao Spreader (an agent marketing platform)”, “Taobao Zhitongche (a charging promotion tool)”, “Diamond Booth (a platform for bidding the space of pictorial advertisements)”, “Super Seller（a platform for product display）”, “Tao Code (the code provided for searching products and stores)”, “Alimama (a big data-based marketing platform)”, together with the augmented investment in advertisements, sales promotion, brand promotion and so forth. In 2010, over 60 million enterprises registered in the platform of Alibaba, among which paid-up members accounted for1.3%. In January 2012, Taobao Mall was renamed as Tmall, as a brand-new B2C platform of Alibaba, converging thousands of brand dealers and manufacturers and serving sellers and customers with one-step solutions. Consequently, this method, on the one hand, simplifying the tiers of displayed commodities in the online retail platform, contributed to the growth of Taobao users searching and purchasing oversea products, and Tmall users following the guidance of this platform to obtain what they need directly and staying longer on the website. On the other hand, with charging system for some members encouraged reputable enterprise-level sellers in Taobao to move in Tmall, and to pay commissions, technical service fees, return points, entrance fees, etc. This kind of differentiated setting  offered Alibaba open platform a mounting number of search opportunities and online advertising business.

2.Capturing Flow and Building a One-stop Shopping Search Platform

The core content of Alibaba’s open platform strategy is the management of information flow. In August 2005, Yahoo China was merged by Alibaba. One day in

2008, Taobao blocked Baidu’s search, and during the next day a shortcut for Taobao sellers was opened by Baidu and the link addresses of Taobao’s website pages can be submitted directly into Baidu’s index library, with no need of Baidu crawlers anymore. By November 2010, Etao was launched by officially Alibaba Group, acquiring most  of its flow from Internet data, external cooperators and Taobao crawled  via Internet. By now, Etao has collected information of group purchase and discount from more than 1000 websites, 0.2 million high-quality websites and 600 B2C website, and the Taoba of Etao is employed by 10 million users for commodities purchasing and experience sharing. Moreover, in Etao sellers are authorized offline to ensure the security of shopping. With Taobao's open search function, B2C merchants outside the Taobao website are able to use the existing Taobao data open platform to transmit data to the Etao search engine. Additionally, supported by more than 600 million items in Taobao, Etao has become a giant guide shopping platform providing more than 1 billion pieces of product information to its users.

3.Taking Technology as a Driving Force and Laying out Ali Cloud Service Ecology Ali Cloud Technology Company founded by Alibaba Group in 2009 is

committed to improve the Apsara system serving for enormous e-commercial and financial system to a public cloud service supporting the comprehensive business of the whole society. Supported by Ali cloud, large enterprises and government institutions are able to obtain the capabilities of sharing, exchanging and analyzing the leading big data, flexibly expanding IT operations and development, Global Business Support/Tolerance Backup Capability, and be exposed to the sound system performance, user experience as well as leading and mature information safeguard system.

In accordance with Alibaba’s cloud ecology blueprint, Ali Could is designed to focus on the research and development of cloud computing infrastructures, providing customers three modes: public cloud, hybrid cloud and private cloud. Ali Cloud, with cloud computing and big data as backup, cooperates with more than 200 large  partners to directly provide customers with industrial cloud, industrial applications, industry solutions, hardware and other services.

Eleven types of new products are released by Ali Could, involving SSD cloud disk with superb reading and writing performance, one-click VPC service for hybrid cloud, postgreSQL-based cloud data bank compatible with Oracle, Redis-backing KV database and batch computing for gene sequencing and rendering, etc. Ali cloud market will be placed as an Internet window of cloud computing ecology, providingcustomers all-round open computing service. Partners are able to present solutions, products, services, and so forth to final users via the cloud market, and simultaneously deal with the enormous cost and management caused by offline sales and deliveries. Nowadays, there have been exceeding 50 kinds of industrial solutions assembled in Ali cloud, covering games, multimedia, government, medical treatment, Internet, finance, etc., and serving for 1.4 million customers. With so many ample solutions, one-step application construction will become accessible for users. For example in medical industry, medical-level big data mining and medical cloud image storage are provided by Ali cloud ecological partners. Accordingly, functions such as remote monitoring and analysis, health management and guidance, drug tracking, gene sequencing, grade diagnosis and treatment are achievable for innovators to medical industry via getting the utmost of the data.

4.Cooperation of Chains, Creating an O2O Integrated Retail Ecosystem

In spite of constant effort made to improve e-commerce ecology, Alibaba’s distribution of offline payment in virtue of Alipay is also accelerated coinstantaneously, and after joining forces with Yintai, Suning and some other giant retailers interaction online and offline, Alibaba has gradually constructed a retail ecology both online and offline. And Alibaba’s comprehensive service ecological capacity is further elevated by this system, which is open to all offline business groups, retail brands and retailers.

The first step is cooperation on flow. Alibaba, as the third party is limited in the quality control of products. Moreover, in the field of 3C household appliances, the market share is far more occupied by JD. than Tmall. To this end, Alibaba’s investment to Haier and the founding of Tmall Circuit City is carried out. Besides, as Suning Tesco is located in Tmall, setting a flagship store in this platform and gaining its own channel entrance, Alibaba's competitiveness in 3C home appliances tends to be augmented. Moreover, all of the offline stores of Suning group and Suning Tesco will be accessible to Alipay, bringing promising flow to Alibaba and adding more scenarios available for the offline payment of Alibaba. In addition, taking such a fundamental infrastructure--payment into account, Alibaba and Suning's cooperation in the business of supply chain finance seems attainable.

The second step lies in the cooperation of payment. In June 2005, Alipay’s payment service was opened to all websites with a payment alliance promising “you dare to use; I dare to lose”. Thereafter, in an effort to further add users, strategic cooperation with organizations with relatively more terminal users, such as major

banks, postal enterprises, online gaming enterprises, large websites, was implemented by Alibaba group to incorporate their resources.

In 2005, as the layout of Alipay’s offline payment scenarios was accelerated, catering, supermarket, bus and hospital were covered by offline scenarios. At the  same time, Alipay started its journey to cooperate with retailing supermarkets, like WAL-MART and Carrefour, and convenience stores as well as catering enterprises. More offline sellers entered in Alibaba’s business ecology via mobile payment, with achieving scenario payments as its specific method. By payment fusion, Alibaba’s tools of payment were offered to sellers, and sellers who acquire the access will be exposed to some value-added services revolving around flow introductions, consumptive information management and commodities purchasing. And all of the offline sellers are parts of Alibaba’s O2O system.

The third step is data cooperation. Jingtai business with 35 department stores and 9 shopping centers in total has accumulated numerous data for almost 17 years. Therefore, with the cooperation between Alibaba and Jingtai business, information of millions of members together with tens of millions of commodities was collected. The consumption data of Jingtai business provided valuable offline information of consumption for Alibaba and became the crucial data of successfully breaking a new ground in online and offline consumption markets.

The fourth step is cooperation on products. In an attempt to open up the online and offline commodity service system, Alibaba has continuously launched O2O products of online and offline consumption scenarios. The newly released  Meow Street of Alibaba, for example, is a mobile application assisting customers in the realization of free Internet accesses, real-time shop navigation, parking payments, restaurant remote queuing, mobile payment and some other functions of daily services, and its cooperation with offline retail enterprises will contribute to a better O2O service.

5.Resources Integration, Promoting Big Data-based Marketing Service

After having its products being involved in many industries, such as e-commerce, payment, community, advertising, search, financial management, IT, APP and sports  as well, Alibaba is now extending its field to e-commerce, finance, advertisement, search, mobile, etc., accumulating a large number of data for this group including data of consumer browsing, trading as well as payment, and the distribution information of logistics enterprises. The resource of data involving daily consumption, wealth, Internet habits and so on has laid a solid foundation for all-round big data operationand gradually become a vital source of profit for Alibaba.

The first aspect is data integration. In the face of the era of mobile Internet, Alibaba’s proportion of product investment and acquisition is significantly increased, and Amap, UC Browser and Kuaidi App are respectively invested. Alibaba, in view of the biggest data of transaction it captured before, has released an online transaction report, demonstrating the palpable priorities of such substantial transaction data. Nevertheless, it is still not enough for human’s facial characterization based on multi-dimensional data. With the perfection of product layout, multi-platform and multi-dimensional data is acquired through the system of product account, gathering many dimensions including map, travel, browsing, news, social interaction, shopping, etc., with advantages in portraying user's Facebook and predicting user's behavior. Precision marketing of big data should not be a simple presentation of information, but a model construction of big data to predict user behavior and improve the conversion rate of marketing. Inferior to the massiveness and multi-dimension of data, the realness and the proportion of key dimensions are of the most significant importance for the large data-based user behavior prediction. Therefore, embracing  the dominance of data in freshly needed high-frequency products such as travel, maps and social networking, Alibaba is equipped with the most core and critical strategic resources for precision marketing in the future.

The second aspect is integration of market resources. Alimama, the leading big data marketing platform in China, embracing the core business data of Alibaba Group and more than 5 billion promotion flow every day, has completed the promotion of over 300 million items, covering up to 98% of netizens and realizing the comprehensive and one-step access of digital media (PC end 1 wireless end + Internet TV end). Alimama, with its data in the platform of media, tool, shopping, etc., is advanced in scope and depth. And the precision marketing is realized by successfully operating the account system via crossing the platform and depicting the user's behavior with substantial data dimensions.

Meanwhile, with in-depth cooperation between Alibaba and media-based websites including Sina, a giant Internet media company in China, Netease, an influential Internet company in China and Phoenix New Media, one of the leading cross-platform network new media companies in China, Alibaba was offered broad coverage of flow both outside and inside the website, enhancing the effect of advertisements. Besides, Alibaba’s strategic investment in AdChina, the leading integrated digital advertising platform in China, engenders a complementarity

between the construction of Admedia’s enterprise-level data marketing platform and Alimama’s existing marketing business. By taking the advantages of AdChina’s TradingOS platform and Alibaba’s big data and cloud computing, an end-to-end infrastructure platform digital advertising technology and large data marketing are to be constructed with the joint effort of the partners after finishing their data connection, to reinforce the capability of flow liquidation and provide leading technology and data products to

businesses and third-party professional organizations.

The third aspect is to enrich big data products. Shengyi Canmou (business adviser) is a unified data platform for sellers founded by Alibaba, pooling massive data and ides of online store operation, which not only assists sellers in unveiling, analyzing, interpreting and forecasting data of flow, goods, transactions and so forth, but also offer better guidance for sellers’ data operation and one-step, personalized and customized business decision service.

Accordingly, the holistic analysis of core data can be accessible  at any  time as the core data, including product ranking, industrial ranking, store operation overview, the analysis of flow, commodity, transaction, service, marketing, market conditions, etc., are grasped by sellers. By flow analysis, overall profile of flow, source and destination of flow, the period of high visiting rate, geographic characteristics, the trend of store decoration, and the distribution of page click are taken into analyses to promote the efficiency of flow conversion. Through commodity analyses, information about overview and effects of commodities, abnormal commodities, classification analyses and purchase is also unveiled to identify promising commodities and instruct stores in commodity purchasing management. Marketing analyses provide tools and effects of marketing, assisting sellers to carry out accurate marketing promotion and improve sales volume. Market conditions are conducive to the analyses of industries, brands and products as well. Attribute analyses, ranking list of commodities and shops, buyers’ portraits and other all-round industry data analysis are also the guidance for decision making, leading merchants to timely grasp dynamics and opportunities in the market.

6.Financial Innovation, Constructing Ecology of Internet Finance

It is demonstrated in the official website of Ant Financial Services that at present Alibaba’s finance sector mainly is composed of Alipay, Zhima Credit, Ant Wealth and MYbank, related to not only the payment, loans and wealth management in the traditional financial field, but also the necessarily fundamental business centering on these. With the low cost of Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, batches of investors aresuccessfully attracted by Ant Financial Services. Moreover, taking the advantages of the big data and business implantation, Ant Financial Services declines the cost of risk control, encouraging users to consume on  the  e-commerce  platform,  improving users stickiness, continuously enriching the data sources, reinforcing the authority of Zhima Credit and purifying the ecological scenario of Internet financial.

Payment scenario is the entry of cash flow. Alipay is positioned as a tool of Online payment in and beyond Taobao. In addition, by taking the advantage of Tmall, Taobao and Alipay's own life service functions, the natural transition is available for the wealth management business of Ant Financial Services, and therefore, with effort in the accumulation of payment scenarios and the cultivation of users’ application habits, users’ deposit funds are naturally transferred to Ant Fortune, Zhao Cai Bao, Yu’E Bao, and even Antsdaq. In June 2005, Alipay’s service became accessible to all the websites and the payment alliance with the slogan “you dare to use; I dare to lose” was also established. Thereafter, in an effort to further increase users, cooperation with organizations with relatively more terminal users, such as major banks, postal enterprises, online gaming enterprises, large websites, was implemented by Alibaba group. In May 2011, a third-party payment license was obtained by Alibaba, authorizing its compliant services, such as currency remittance, online payments, mobile phone payment, prepaid card payment issuance and acceptance, and receipts  of bank cards. In May 2011, a third-party payment license of funds was endowed to Alibaba, approving its third-party services of payment and settlement for fund companies and investors.

Investment and financial management are the engine of cash flow regeneration. Myxiaodai of Alibaba group, with the Internet data operation model, provides small enterprises, individual entrepreneurs of e-commerce platforms such as Alibaba, Taobao, and Tmall with Internet-based, batch-oriented, and data-based financial services. In other words, those vulnerable groups excluded from traditional financial channels are offered the pure-credit petty loan service in Myxiaodai, featuring in “small amount, short term and all time service of borrowing and repayment”. In June 2013, Alipay’s value-added service was released. As long as capital was transferred into Yu’E Bao, the process of purchasing funds was accomplished, and the transferred funds will be confirmed by the fund company on the second working day and the income will be calculated. After 4 months and a half, the number of users exceeded 16 million, and the Tianhong Zenglibao Monetary Fund supporting the Balance Treasure became the largest monetary fund in the China’s market. At the same time, Alibabaalso joined forces with Ping An Insurance (Group) Company and Tencent to fund the construction of an Internet insurance company, namely Zhongan Zaixian. Later the open platform for investment and wealth management-- Zhao Cai Bao was launched in April 2014. By the first quarter of 2015, there had been exceeding 1 million credit loan accomplished in the platform of Ant Financial Services, accounting for a 51% increase in the same ratio, a new loan of RMB 12 billion, and an average loan of  about 11,000 yuan.

Credit evaluation ensures the recycle of cash flow. With a great number of credit information about users’ consumption and store operation accumulated in Alibaba’s e-commerce platform, the improvement of loan efficiency, reduction of risks and particularly forceful constraint for borrowers can be achieved in Ant Financial Services on the basis of big data analyses instead of manual review. At the same time, these data are searchable for banks and companies. Lenders of both the consumption loan in the Ant Credit Pay and small amount loan in MYbank are users of Alibaba e-commerce platform. In this case, if someone refuses to return money, he will be forced to pay an especially high cost of default, as it is quite impossible for borrows to keep away from online shopping on Alibaba, the dominant e-commerce platform today, or selling stuffs in Tmall. More importantly, all the address information and communication information of the borrower are archived in the Alibaba database, so it is almost effortless to recover. Hence, the financial data generated by Ant Financial is more creditworthy. Different from the People's Bank of China's credit information system, Ant Credit can be consulted at anytime and anywhere, and has now become the largest private credit information company, in charge of the Internet credit status of users across the network.

In September 2015, Alipay 9.0 version came out, whose newly-added social scenarios enriched the data dimension and would also be conducive to Zhima Credit. Additionally, a debit function was also provided for the loan between friends, and Zhima Credit Rating became a decisive reference for lending. By this time, asset and capital were most directly connected.

7.Multi-party Alliance, Offering Social Logistics Cloud Services

In May 2013, Alibaba Group and Yintai Group (one of the most powerful private enterprises in China) together with Fosun Group (an influential investment group in China), Fuchun Group (a group of technical consulting service), Shunfeng Group, and “3 Tong, 1 Da”(Shentong, Yuantong, Zhongtong and Yunda), jointly founded a Cainiao network Technology Co., Ltd., in an aim to create an open platform for masslogistics and a wish to deliver packages in any part of China within 24 hours. Focusing on building a mainstay network of China's intelligent logistics, Cainiao network is constructed as an open and socialized storage facilities nationwide via self-construction, co-construction, cooperation, transformation and so forth. Also, it offers high-quality service for e-commercial enterprises, logistics companies, warehousing enterprises, third-party logistics service providers, supply and storage service providers, and so on, by employing the advanced Internet technology to establish an open, transparent and shared data application platform for e-commerce companies. Besides, Cainiao network also encourages the development and upgrading of logistics industry to high value-added areas so as to establish an efficient coordination mechanism of socialized resources and to promote the service quality of socialized logistics in China.

There is a central data platform established in Cainiao network to connect partners’ express delivery and warehousing services through standardized electronic and four-level databases. Also in this platform the data of production and circulation are assembled to prepare for a high-speed information flow and the routes of logistics delivery are optimized via big data. Through social collaboration, Cainiao network  has now finished a full-network logistics link covering cross-border express delivery, warehouse allocations, rural and terminal distribution. Thousands of domestic and foreign logistics, warehousing companies and nearly 2 million logistics and distribution personnel are on the Cainiao data platform. At present, over 70% of the China’s parcel data are covered by Cainiao network.

8.Cross-industrial Integration, Exploring New Model for Social Marketing

Tmall together with many TV groups is exploring the new mode of “integration of video and network’ social marketing, aiming to fuse online novels, e-commerce with fashion elements, involving the implantation of brand name products in films  and television dramas in the previous stage, “purchasing while watching” during the process of watching, and star-driven and project-driven sales of derivatives in the final stage. With these three stages, ratings can be liquidated and new model of interactive shopping can be promoted.

The first mode is F2O mode. F2O means focus to online. Tmall, keeping an eye on Chinese people’s growing recreational consumption and material demands stimulated by popular stars, combines variety shows of stars with e-commerce model, enabling consumers to see accessories while watching the stars. In this way, audience’s desire to purchase is augmented. This model is initially carried out byTmall during its cooperation with program “A Bite of China” of China Central Television (CCTV). Later on during the second season of the program, the content-related promotional information was introduced simultaneously with the show. And ever since purchasing while watching has become a commercial phenomenon. After that, Tmall respectively sponsored several famous TV shows in China, such as “Where is Daddy?” of Hunan Satellite TV, “The Goddess of the Oriental TV and the variety show “Go Fighting!”. In this model, Tmall is firmly bound with the program, and customers can immediately give orders in Tmall via their smart phones. Compare with previous method of recreational marketing--implanting advertisements in variety shows, this method not only contributes to brand exposures, but also guides more  users to Tmall app. Apart from that, the frequent presence of Tmall’s cartoon image in variety shows and the highlight of this image in packages make the brand deeply favored and memorized by the public, converting the static brand to dynamic image.

The second mode is T2O mode. T2O refers to TV to online. Since May 2014, with many strategic cooperation agreements signed between Tmall and many TV media, a brand-new business model of T2O was created. In this model e-commerce industry chain was implanted in TV dramas, and the ratings could be liquidated directly, and sponsorship products can be exposed in TV dramas and bought by audience immediately. This is another exploration of the “integration of TV and Internet” after the combination of variety shows in e-commerce trying to “buy while watching”. During the broadcast of Oriental Satellite TV series, “My Sunshine”, audience with Tmall app in their mobile phone can access to the interactive page of TV series shortly after scanning the station logo of Oriental Satellite TV. Moreover,  on the interactive page, viewers could find the same costume as popular stars’ in synchronization with the TV series, also concessions were provided during the interaction and purchasing-while-watching was realized.

The last mode is the “Double Eleven” party. To stimulate consumption, Tmall joined hands with the TV groups in the exploration of the cooperative mechanism of e-commerce TV series and the development and co-investment of TV series or TV programs. On November 11, 2015 a TV program for shopaholics “Tmall 2015  ‘Double 11’ Carnival” was jointly designed by Tmall and Hunan Satellite TV (HNTV). During the program, Jolin Tsai, a famous Chinese singer, performed 3 songs and the cosmetics flow of her endorsement became the first in Tmall’s changing category. Chinese actress Zhao Wei’s red wine flagship store opened in Tmall boosted its visits 10 times after her performance. The maturity of TV interactive technology and theshaping of online consumption scenes have brought new business growth to Alibaba. With the joint promotion of shopping carnival, Hunan Satellite TV and music films, the transaction volume of RMB 57.1 billion yuan was obtained in 2015 during the period of the “Double Eleven”.

Acknowledgments

On this occasion of the completion of my postgraduate study, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to all my teachers, especially my supervisor, and friends over the three years and my beloved parents.

With great sincerity, I’d like to, first of all, express my thanks to my supervisor Professor Luo Lingjuan, whose rigorous attitude in academic research and at work inspired my profoundly. She is so warmhearted and conscientious as a supervisor that all my questions in learning and thesis writing are solved effectively under her patient guidance. Particularly, during the period I wrote this report, her valuable suggestions and frequent assistance helped me a lot. I have to admit that without her ample knowledge and patient guidance, this report can not accomplished smoothly. Therefore, from the bottom of my heart, I appreciate my dearest supervisor.

Then, I would like to extend my thanks to all the teachers in ECJTU. Their devotion in education touched me profoundly and influenced by them I made my decision to engage in the cause of education. And their thought arrangement provided me with favorable circumstance for learning, living and thesis writing. Particularly, I would to give my devout gratitude to Professor Liao who offered ample opportunities of written translation to me and assisting me in revising my translation. With his help, I made great improvement in translation.

Moreover, I would also like to extend my gratitude to my friends and my roommates at university as well as my colleagues during my internship.

At last, I would give my sincere gratitude to my beloved parents. Their selfless love and frequent encouragement helped me surpass all the difficulties successfully.

Thanks for all your help during the three years from the bottom of my heart.