On The Translation Of Foreign Legal Terms In Common Law From The Perspective Of The Stratificational Model

Based on Snell-Hornby's integrated approach and the"stratificational"model, this thesis has developed the"stratificational"model for legal translation according to its specific characteristics, and has verified the revised modle with the translating of the Latin term Uti Possidetis and the Norman term Estoppel. First of all, the conventional areas of legal translation should be classified into statute law, case law and academic writings, and the text types should be classified accordingly. Second, the equivalence criteria of FLTs should cover semantic, pragmatic, functional and stylistic sense to assure the full equivalence and best translation effect. As to the semantic equivalence, we should pay attention to both connotative and denotative meaning. The etymology of a FLT has played a very important role in defining connotative meaning while the referential function demonstrates denotative meaning. As to the pragmatic equivalence, we found that legal families and branches are vital for its contextualized meaning, especially the legal culture tradition or legal history. As to the functional equivalence, both language function and legal function are under consideration. As to the stylistic equivalence, the translator should choose formal and achaic words, especially the four-character expressions to translate legal terms. Third, a high grade of cultural differentiation of the source language is conducive to the understanding of the cultural contextual meaning of legal terms while that of the target language can be a trigger for an equivalent. Fourth, legal terms have hierarchically normative function, which organically corresponds with the hierarchical character of the"stratificational"model of the integrated approach. In conclusion, the translator should have a holistic consideration of meaning, culture and function of FLTs, mainly realize the semantic, pragmatic, and functional equivalence, adopt procedure triplets so as to reproduce their normative meaning, cultural connotation and legal function, assure terminology standardization and best translation effect. This study has offered feasible translation procedures and translation quality assessment model for legal term translation.