Traducció comentada de l’anglès al català d’un fragment dels comptes anuals de l’any 2017 de Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.

Abstract

Financial statements are, to a great extent, a challenge in translation owing to the lack of accounting translation guides and parallel texts that ease the semi-specialized translators’ task. Reference documents are particularly rare for the reason that most countries annual accounts differ between them and reference guides are only useful for a concrete pair of countries and languages. This paper’s aim, therefore, is to help in reducing this deficit through a commented informative translation from English into Catalan of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. 2017’s consolidated income statement and balance sheet. The translation of these two financial statements provides translators with a model that allows them to identify some of the main differences existing between the accounting reports of Catalonia and the United States. This academic work also contains a contrast between these two financial statements in the source and the target language developed through a comparative analysis of the accounting laws these countries follow: the US-GAAP and the IFRS, in the United States; and the PGC, in Catalonia. Likewise, the presence of a commentary of translation problems for lexical and non-lexical units simplifies the understanding of the translation process and the systematization of problem solving. Moreover, this paper is accompanied by a glossary of accounting terms that allows readers to easily find the translation of a series of accounting terms in context. Indeed, this work is not a merely translation of two financial statements but also a financial statements translation guide available for semi-specialized translators. The problem-solving systematization for specific terms included in this paper is not exclusively applicable to the translation of these two concrete financial statements of Walmart, but also to other financial statements to be translated between this pair of countries and languages.