Vague Expressions And Its Translation In Legal Documents

It's all known that legal language is a kind of customary language, which includes words, phrases and modes of expression typical of unique style. One of the most important characteristics of legal language is precision in its expression. However, as legal language is based on language and language is intrinsically vague, legal language is inevitably vague to some extent. The study of the legal language has been a bit too much focused on its precise and rigorous aspects, while the vagueness of the legal language is somewhat overlooked. But its existence in legal language is not merely a linguistic feature of law. It is precisely this character that makes the law as accommodating and general as possible.In this thesis, the author gives a comprehensive analysis of the causes of vagueness and its functions in legal language from semantic and pragmatic perspectives. Many examples have been quoted and classified into several categories to illustrate vagueness is common in both English and Chinese legislative documents. This paper tries to explore the theoretical basis for translatability of vague terms in legislative documents. If there is no corresponding vague term in the target language, the translator is sure to face a problem, or, at least, he may have to make his choice on grounds which are not objective. In this thesis the writer puts forth her strategy to achieve equivalent legal effect. The detailed arrangement of the thesis is as follows:Chapter one deals with definitions of vagueness and legal language.Chapter two illustrates various embodiments of precision.Chapter three makes an introduction of the relationship between precision and vagueness.Chapter four focuses on causes of vagueness from both semantic and pragmatic perspective.Chapters five and six are the most essential parts of this thesis. Through classification and analysis of vague expressions in both English and Chinese legislative documents as well as discussion of E-C translation of vague expressions, a conclusion is made that E-C translation of vague expressions is possible and translation strategy of equivalent legal effect shall be adopted. The thesis also makes an observation of such translation techniques as amplification and conversion to be employed for equivalent translation.