On Precision Of Legal Translation

With China's access to the WTO and the accelerating process of the globalization, it appears that China's legal translation and legal translation studies lag behind the western countries, which is manifested not only in the degree to which legal translation and legal translation studies have attracted attention but also in the systematic theoretical study and guidelines for legal translation. In the light of such worrying situation, I am motivated to conduct the study within the theoretical framework of Skopostheorie.This research, according to the descriptive translation studies, is made with the top-down functionally-oriented methodology, differing from the conventional bottom-up linguistically-oriented approach. Through integrating the macro-level translation Skopos and text function with the micro-level manipulation of syntactic structures and lexical expressions, this study mirrors and verifies the reasonableness and feasibility of Skopostheorie as the guidelines for legal translation.Precision is the symbol of legal language's spirit and vitality, thus precision has, accordingly, become the ultimate aim of legal translation. Or rather, the precise legal effects of the target text determine all the means employed in the legal translation process. In such case, the systematic study in this thesis has proved that Skopostheorie can help legal translators free themselves from the restraints of the conventional translation approaches, facilitate the legal transnational action and achieve the precise legal effects of the target text.