An Approach To The Diction-oriented Principle Of Fidelity In Legal Translation

Legal English, derived but different from the commonly used English, iscomposed of words and terms specialized for and developed gradually fromlegislative and judicial practices. Combining legal science and English, theinterdisciplinary branch legal English is an important and attractive study field ofEnglish for Special Purposes in terms of linguistics due to its reflection of legalculture, system and structure through corresponding legal vocabulary and concepts.As Eugene A Nida remarked in one of his scholastic work on translation “FromOne Language to Another Language”, translation means translating meaning, and thenature of translation is the corresponding transference of meaning from one languageto another. However, legal translation may reveal a different story due to differencesin legal regime, legal system and legal concept. Thus, legal translation is more thanmerely bridging two different kinds of linguistic symbols in legal language. Thequality of translation will be assured after taking into account the correct translationof the legal words and terms even the legal culture between different alienable legalsystems. Only in this way can accurate corresponding expressions be veiled in targetlanguage.The principle of fidelity has long been a well acknowledged criterion for thetranslation practice in both China and the western countries. The fidelity in translationgenerally refers to the accurate transference of both the meaning and the culture of thesource texts to the maximum degree. However, no systematic and comprehensiveacademic research results have been conducted on the applicability of the principle offidelity in legal English, nor the differences in the accuracy of the translation betweenthe common used English and legal English. Concerning the above-mentioned andbearing in mind the focuses on use of fidelity in translation of the legal words andterms, the author of this thesis tries to make a preliminary attempt in relevant area.With extensive examples, reference to the relative materials, recognition of therelativity in the application of fidelity, as well as the demonstration of the basic features of legal words and terms, the author aims to show the influences of fidelityon law-related translation along with the relevant applicable strategy, whose mainconcentration is the importance of profound understanding of the meaning of thewords and terms from the source texts for the purpose of fidelity.