Problems And Solution: English-Chinese Translation Of Legal Terms

Legal translation has a long history. Although the translation of legal documents is one of the oldest and most important translation activities in the world, both translation theorists and jurists have long neglected it. For a long time, legal translation has been regarded by translation theorists merely as one of the branches of special purpose translation, or a third-class branch of translation studies1. Even more surprising is the low profile attributed to legal translation by lawyers.With the development of the society and the acceleration of the trend of globalization, in our era of multilingualism, translation plays a major role of a medium of legal communication among different countries. The research on legal translation is also increasing. With the transparency requirement of WTO to our country, the acceleration of our legalization process, and the increase of the communication with foreign countries, a large number of our legal documents are translated into foreign languages every year. Meanwhile, in order to join world economic and trade rules and international practice, and take part in the international economic and political activities, we need to further understand international economic laws, international trade laws, other foreign laws and the comparatively developed legal systems of developed countries, so as to learn from them, absorb their essence and improve our legislative quality. Hence, it is vital to translate foreign laws into Chinese, which should both suit the characteristics of our legal language and keep the original meaning of the source language.With the enlarging function of legal translation in social life and international communication, legal translation gets more and more attention from translationtheorists and jurists in the academe. More and more scholars are devoted to the research on legal translation, and have got plentiful achievements. The research on legal translation in our country is comparatively late. It is still a new subject, the research is still at the elementary phase, and a mature theoretical system has yet to be developed. Moreover, the research on legal terms translation is much less. Most researches just talk in generalities, or just analyze the concrete translation errors of some legal terms, and give the correct translations to them. There are more microcosmic researches but few macrocosmic ones.The present paper tries to combine microcosmic research with macrocosmic studies. Mainly taking Sarcevic's "communicative theory of legal translation" and the viewpoint of "terminological incongruency in legal translation" as the theoretical structure, the author tries to summarize concrete problems in English-Chinese translation of legal terms, analyze the reasons causing these problems, and put forward the translation principles for English-Chinese translation of legal terms, combining with the research achievements of terminological translation principles at present and the characteristics of legal terms. At last, based on the translator's status in legal translation, the author brings forward some possible solutions to the problems existing in English-Chinese translation of legal terms from the translator's angle.The paper is presented in eight chapters.In chapter 1 introduction, the author analyzes the significance of legal translation, shows the primacy of legal terms translation, and thereby reveals the purpose and meaning of the research subject.Chapter 2 introduces the definition, etymology and characteristics of legal terms. This part mainly introduces the background knowledge of legal terms and gives the reader preparatory comprehension about them.Chapter 3 summarizes the general theories and introduces the main theoretical structure of the essay. Mainly applying Sarcevic's "communicative theory of legaltranslation" and theory of "terminological incongruency in legal translation" as the general theoretical instruction, the paper reveals the changing process of legal translation from transcoding to an act of communication, and the largest obstacle in legal translation—the phenomenon of terminological incongruency across different legal systems, and tries to reveal the root for the existence of the problems in legal terms translation through analyzing the various exhibitions of terminological incongruency.The concrete problems in English-Chinese translation of legal terms are summed up in Chapter 4. According to the author's summarization, the problems could be divided into four types: 1) translation error or translating without real understanding; 2) one legal terms with more than one translations or different legal terms sharing the same translation; 3) non-equivalence of the meanings of legal terms; 4) stiff literal translation, which cannot be accepted by the receivers of the target language.In Chapter 5, the author tries to find the deep-seated reasons for these problems. The author mainly analyzes the reasons from four aspects: legal tradition, real life, social system and ethical psychology.Chapter 6 is the emphasis of the thesis. According to current research achievements on terminological translation principles, combining with the inherent characteristics of legal terms and following Sarcevic's partition for the degree of equivalence: near equivalence, partial equivalence and non-equivalence, the author brings forward the translation principles for English-Chinese translation of legal terms upon her own understanding. The principles are made up of four parts: 1) direct use of corresponding terms in case of equivalents or near-equivalents; 2) use of lexical expansion to achieve functional equivalence in case of partial equivalence; 3) use of paraphrase, neutral terms, borrowing or neologisms in case of complete lack of equivalence; 4) use of vague words for vague terms.Chapter 7 analyzes the changing role of the legal translator: from a mediator to atext-producer and ultimately a co-drafter, the translator becomes the kernel in legal translation. Therefore, the solution to all the problems in legal translation, including the problems of legal terms translation, could be found mainly from the angle of the translator. The author suggests four aspects for the solution from the angle of the translator as follows: 1) make oneself an expert in the two languages involved; 2) familiarize oneself with the two different legal systems and legal cultures; 3) perfect oneself through constant conscientious practice; 4) teach oneself theory and learn to use theory.Chapter 8 is the conclusion.