A Report On The Chinese Translation Of Elements Of International Law (Chapter Ⅳ,Part Ⅳ)

The translation of legal texts is of great significance to the dissemination of legal knowledge.The source text in this report is excerpted from Chapter IV,Part IV of Elements of International Law,which is a significant work on international law written by Henry Wheaton.William A.P.Martin,an American missionary in Qing Dynasty,whose Chinese name was Ding Weiliang,translated it into classical Chinese,and named it Wan-Guo-Gong-Fa,which promoted the spread of legal knowledge covered by the Elements of International Law.However,it is difficult for modern readers with Chinese cultural background to read.For this reason,the author aims at translating it into modern Chinese version to adapt to the modern readers.Guided by the theory of translation as adaptation and selection of Hu Gengshen,and after referring to parallel texts and background information,this report analyzes the language features of the source text and carries out case study in three dimensions:linguistic dimension,cultural dimension and communicative dimension.The basic translation principle can be summarized as “multi-dimensional adaptation and adaptive selection”.In the linguistic dimension,this report analyzes some common words with legal meanings,and the translation methods of attributive clauses,pronouns and nominalizations;in the cultural dimension,this report introduces the domestication and foreignization of culture-loaded words in the process of translating;in the communicative dimension,this report discusses the translation strategies of passive voice,complex long sentences,parallel structures and conditional sentences.The author believes that a good translation must ask the translators to fully understand and adapt to the similarities and differences between the source text and the target text,and choose adaptive translation methods.This report focuses on the translation of legal texts.Based on the theory of translation as adaptation and selection,it aims at exploring the translation principles and strategies of legal texts,and putting forward corresponding solutions.It is hoped that this report can provide some enlightenments for translators who are engaged in legal texts’ translation in the future,and that it can provide the reference for readers with Chinese cultural background to study legal texts on international law.