On The Assessment Of The Translation Of Legal Speech Acts

The thesis, by drawing on the theory of translation quality assessment as the theoretical foundation, explores the assessment of the translation of legal speech acts (LSA), acts that can produce legal effects. The overall aim of the thesis is to apply the proposed assessment model of the translation of individual LSA with a view to finding a better way to assess the ever-increasingly voluminous legal translations in China.To achieve the objective, the thesis first designs, on the basis of House's revisited model of translation quality assessment and Searle's speech act theory and Trosborg's conception of LSA, a model for the assessment of the translation of LSA. Then an analysis of some typical LSA is made to lay a foundation for the assessment of the translation of LSA. The interrelationship among parameters in the proposed model, including field, interactional tenor, functional tenor, mode, manner, intent and legal equivalence, are revealed, and the categorization of LSA is elaborated for the purpose of fully describing LSA. Finally, the proposed assessment model is applied to assess extended speech acts with typical examples in different legal settings.The thesis concludes that the assessment of the translation of LSA is a dynamic process and that the proposed model serves well as a model for the assessment of the translation of LSA. The thesis has provided a new perspective for the assessment of legal translation in particular and some new insights into translation quality assessment in general. The study of legal speech acts and the assessment of their translation are expected to be conducive to machine translation as well. The research on judicial speech acts may also have implications for forensic linguistics and judicial proceedings.