Legal Translation In Social Change Of Later Qing Dynasty And The Influence Today

The later period of Qing Dynasty was a special period in the history of China. As the western world invaded China, their advanced cultures spread quickly throughout our whole country. The western world impacted the old feudal dynasty in many aspects, such as politics, law, economy culture etc. Chinese people started to get in touch with the perfect western legal culture.Chapter 1 introduced the whole history of western legal culture translated into China. In the several years of later Qing Dynasty, as the support of the government and the need of western legal culture, the society appeared a trend to translate western legal works and study their advanced law. From the beginning of 19 century, some patriots had begun to translate some western codes and legal documents into China. In order to satisfy the need of dealing diplomatic affairs, some famous works about international laws had been introduced into our country. Later, as the translating bodies and public institutions grew quickly, the domain of translation broke through the narrow ranges and developed into broad ranges including all kinds of legal books, such as the works about constitutions, civil laws, criminal laws etc. The translation activity in later Qing Dynasty was a systematic project. Its'splendid achievements were the result of many reasons.Chapter 2 analysed the large body attending translating activities in later Qing Dynasty. At that time, one of the important condition resulting in getting the accomplish was that people attending translating activities were large, including the advanced stratums of the Qing Dynasty, a large number of student studying abroad, the advanced bourgeoisies, the enlightened publishing persons, the diplomatic ambassadors, some foreigners etc. The advanced stratums of the Qing Dynasty had the dominant position of talents and funds. Comparing with the advanced stratums, other bodies put the emphases on propagation and their works had more advancement and ideology.Chapter 3 wanted to say the correct translation of basic legal vocabulary, terminology, concept which was the basic component of western legal works. As the disparity of different areas in western world, their legal culture had much difference. In the process of translation activity in later Qing Dynasty, how to choose books adapting to the need of ruling class and society was very important. The government also realized they could not translate books blindly. From the areas of their works, the contents originating not only from adversary law but also from civil law must confer to the basic vocabulary, terminology, concept etc. It was very important to translate them correctly because they were the basic component of the whole works. After a long quarrel of different translating methods, translators summarized some good ways solving this hard problem. Another key problem was the unification of names. In the early days of translations, lots of translators were concerned about the confusion of names. At that time, the unification of names had not started. Then some experts begun to write some articles and organized some meetings to discuss and try to solve this issue. William Alexander Parson Martin and Yanfu were the outstanding representatives of them. Another important point I wanted to say was that the intimate relationship between China and Japan. In the early days, the achievements of our country impacted Japan directly. Then after the famous reformation of Japan, they had taken many methods to study western worlds, including law, politics, economy etc. When a new book was published in foreign country, you could immediately find the same translating works in Japan. Our government dispatched many students studying abroad especially in Japan, the students get the woks to our country. Legal culture of Japan permeated into China in every aspect, especially in the broad spreading of the vocabularies translated into Japan.Chapter 4 expounded how to press these translation books and made people know in market. After western legal works were translated, they must be showed to people in some forms, such as newspaper and books. The publishing houses were also comprehensive, including the official and folk houses, domestic and abroad houses. In early days, these tasks were mainly taken by authorities and churches. As we all knew, official translating and publishing houses had superiority in staff, fund, equipment etc. At the same time, some church publishing houses were positive in this activity, such as London missionary society mission press, presby terian mission press, the christian literature society for china etc which attributed much to the publish and spread of legal works. One of marked change after 1898 was that folk publishing houses gradually became a dominant strength. The distinct character of them was the dependent in economy. So they had more free right in contents of choosing books. Another character was the change of translators. Foreigners'work was taken by our own translators. So when the translators and publishing houses changed, the emphases were put on our urgent need. We tried to find some strategies for administration and government. The most famous folk publishing houses was commercial publishing houses which had distinctive styles in choice of books and ideas of embodiment. The translation activity entered into a climax by the endeavour of it.Chapter 5 told us the importance of owning our translation experts and cultivating translation talents in our country. As the beginning of translation, the government also invited some foreigners because of lack of translation talents. The works of the foreigners were not suited to the need of our country because the culture background between the invitations and the tradition of our country existed much difference. In this case, the government of Qing Dynasty had begun to realize the importance of cultivate translation talents. At the same time, some folk publishing houses, advanced bourgeoisies and other patriotic persons also started to cultivate translation talents to satisfy the need of our society. In the period of the activity, some translation experts made much contribution, such as William Alexander Parson Martin, John Fryer, Yanfu, Liang Qichao, Huang Zunxian, Zhang Yuanji etc. They not only translated large number of western political and legal books, but also had the good basic quality especially in the aspects of translation theory. Their original nature made them see translation as a dependent subject. Though their hard work, translation of law gradually became standard and systematic.Chapter 6 illustrated the influence to politics, law, people ideas of translation activity in later Qing Dynasty. Translation activity produced great influence to politics, law, people ideas at that time. The translating activity had great effects on Qing Dynasty, heightening the international status of our county, providing rich materials of reforming old laws and promoting the formation of new social ideas. At the analysis of politics, the entering of western legal culture was directly contacted with the change of internal affairs. The contents of translation were decided by diplomatic affairs, actual need and political information at different time in our country. In some senses, translation activity was attached to political information and was the direct product of official information. Then, the outcomes were accepted by people. Translation activity freed from the bunch of politics. Translation activity developed from the monopoly of official department into folk management. Translation activity became more and more mature and turned into an independent subject. So, this subject became strong day by day. Many publishing houses positively took part in the activity. Finally, the dependent legal subject naturally put forward to the political information. Generally speaking, the requirement of politics was the original motive and power of translation. Translation activity promoted political information at some degree after it developed in a very long time. So we could say political information and translation activity were influenced mutually. The relationship between them was one mutual benefit at that time. From the angle of legal system, in the half century of later Qing Dynasty, we translated hundred of western legal works which supplied abundant materials and theory basics to legal reformation. Although legal reformation was the ultimate result of all sorts of social conflicts, yet it was not separated from translation of western legal books. The outcome of translation demonstrated the whole western developing legal civilization concretely including international laws, constitutional and administrative law, criminal law, civil law, commercial law, criminal and civil procedure law etc. These books introduced different legal system to our country which gave us good models of reformation. The import of western legal system accelerated the disintegration of traditional feudal legal system and increased the process of modern development of legal system in our country. People attending the translation activity almost were the representatives of social advanced stratums at that time. Their achievements not only promoted the formation of advanced ideas, but also supplied people a convenient way to contact and know western world directly. So we could say they made contribution to the liberation and promotion of people ideas.Chapter 7 set forth we can draw lessons from our ancestors in many aspects when we want to study western countries today. As we all knew, legal system was the basic component of western culture. As the origin of influence and impact, the import of western legal system had great meanings. In the history of legal translation in later Qing Dynasty, some translation theory and criterion proposed by famous translation jurists such Liang Qichao and Yanfu had distinct character in that epoch. Nowadays, we once again face how to import western legal system in our country. We encountered some difficulties in the process. For example, how to choose books to satisfy our requirement was a very difficult problem facing to operators of translation project and jurists of translation. This problem is related to solve the problem rising from the conflict between outside legal situation and legal need of our country. This problem also confers to how to solve the problem rising from the contradiction between the spread of foreign developing legal culture and the construction of our internal legal system. Another example, from later Qing Dynasty to nowadays, the criteria of translation were not defined. Had the traditional principles and criteria formed in that time some actual meaning today? Different translators have different opinions. They also propose some new ideas at the basic of the old theory. Besides, there are some other urgent problems wanting to solve, such as how to translate relative vocabularies accurately, how to unify the name of legal works, how to appraise lots of western legal books translated by Japanese jurists. Our precedents have summarized some experience and lessons. We can draw lessons from them in many aspects. The brilliant achievements gained in later Qing Dynasty must give us great meanings in new days.