Font Size: a A A

Plain English And Legal Translation

Posted on:2002-07-20Degree:MasterType:Thesis
Country:ChinaCandidate:Y ZhuFull Text:PDF
GTID:2155360092481586Subject:Foreign Linguistics and Applied Linguistics
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
The traditional way of writing official and legal documents has not worked well. Too often, complicated and jargon-filled documents have resulted in frustration, lawsuits, and a lack of trust between citizens and their government. To overcome this legacy, we have a great responsibility to communicate clearly. Plain English is good, clear writing which communicates as simply and effectively as possible. But it is not a childish or simplistic form of English. Plain English focuses on the message. Since the 1970's, plain English has become more and more popular.With continuous deepening of our national economic restructuring and constant improvement of the investment environment, especially China's accession to the WTO, direct foreign investments in China are increasing day by day. With the expansion of economic and technological cooperation between China and other countries, overseas business people are eager to know the laws as well as the regulations concerning foreign trade and economics promulgated by the Chinese government. Now that plain language becomes more and more popular in western counties, many legal documents have been rewritten in plain language. To gear to the international practice, it seems necessary to translate the Chinese legal documents into plain foreign languages.On the basis of the above analysis, the author of this thesis focuses on the exploration of translating Chinese legal documents into plain English. Using plain English to translate Chinese legal documents maybe appears new to many readers. The author will make a comparative study of two English versions of a Chinese legal document , so as to show the advantages of plain English in legal translation.Chapter one, by analyzing the style and purposes of legislation, points out that the degree of the comprehension of legal documents is the criterion to measure the quality of legal drafting. Therefore, the recurring theme for legal drafting is the need for the law to be simple and direct in order to be understood.Chapter two mainly serves as an introduction to plain English. Section one delves into the history of plain English movement, including the accomplishments and unaccomplishments of plain English movement. The purpose of this chapter is to show that plain English is more and more popular throughout the world, especially in the U. S. A.. Chapter three focuses on answering the criticisms of plain language. Criticisms of plain language, both old and new, are discussed in details in this chapter. Section one is about the old criticisms, while section two the new. Through analysis and according to statistics, counterattacks to the criticisms prove that such criticisms do not hold water.Chapter four expounds on the intelligibility of legal drafting. Section one concentrates on the four principal qualities which contribute to simplicity; section two deals with the precision of legal drafting, in which two aspects are tackled: the choice of words and the sentence structure. Chapter five explicates the employment of plain English in translating Chinese legal documents. On the basis of the contrastive study of two English versions of a Chinese legal document, close attention is directed to three specific categories: words, grammar and syntax. Comparative study indicates that, with respect to plain English, one version is superior to the other. Sometimes the author expresses her own idea of translation. The author hopes that the research of translating Chinese legal documents in plain English will shed light on the improvement of legal translation.
Keywords/Search Tags:Translation
PDF Full Text Request
Related items