On Translation Of Legal Instruments

In recent years, Sino-foreign communication in the field of (the) law is on the rise day by day along with the rapid development of globalization and China's deepening reform and opening-up to the outside world. In this respect, translation of legal instruments (hereinafter referred to as "TLI") plays an important part. Every year, tremendous quantities of Chinese legal instruments are translated into English, the universal language of the world, at the same time a huge number of foreign legal instruments are introduced to China. In particular, the TLI demand is soaring after China's WTO Accession. And higher standards are set to ensure the quality of translation. As far as the Chinese current situation of translation of legal instruments is concerned, the quality of TLI is, on the whole, not so satisfactory in contrast to this increasing demand. Firstly, this is because there is a great shortage of qualified legal translators. The legal translator must be familiar with the law, well versed in English and translation so as to ensure the quality of translation and to meet the expected professional standards. It is no wonder that legal translation is regarded by the translation community as the most difficult area in comparison to that of other texts. According to some authorities concerned, there are a very few people in mainland China who excel in both the law and English. However, people who have a good command of both are still not necessarily qualified as legal translators. Translation is a mission which is highly professional, technical and the success of which depends a great deal on practice. It is a misconception that English proficiency will automatically result in translation qualification, since the former is only one of the prerequisites to the latter. Painstaking efforts in practice and good background knowledge about China and English-speaking countries, etc. are needed...