Translation Of English And Chinese Legislative Texts

With the accelerating globalization of the world economy, intemationalexchanges concerning law become more and more frequent; and, legal translation, themeans for such exchanges, is gaining ground in importance on translation of otherspecial-purpose texts. Studies on legislative translation are thus of great significancein this context.At present, studies on legal translation are mostly devoted to inquiry of thetranslation of legal terminology. But the style in legislative translation as a whole isby no means less important than legal terminology. So, the author of this thesis tries tomake a preliminary probe into the translation of legislative style.In view of the fact that many people don't know what style to follow when theyconduct translation of legislation, this thesis proposes domestication strategy forlegislative translation.First, this thesis makes an introduction to legal language and the relation betweenlegal language and society, and points out that the legislative style is culture-specificand that the practice of legal translation concerning style is in a dilemma.And then, an analysis is made on the stylistic similarity and difference betweenEnglish and Chinese legislation, and the causes of the difference are elaborated. Andthese analyses serve as the basis for the further analyses of general and specialtranslation theories that could be applied to translation of legislative style. The thesisholds that general translation theories could not solve the problem concerning thechoice of style in legislative translation, and thus advocates the new approach to legaltranslation, as was proposed by Susan Sarcevic, to produce two versions expressingthe same message, each in its own way.And then, the thesis reviews three sets of translation strategies and proposesdomestication strategy for legislative translation. And, in an attempt to justify thechoice of domestication strategy, an analysis is made in such respects as the purposeof legislation, the function of legislative style, the intention of translation, the uniquestyle of legislation and acceptability of the style. AT the end, some legislative rules and translations are quoted to examplify andfurther justify, in the categories of lexis and syntax, the domestication strategy forlegislative translation.The conclusion of this thesis is that domestication strategy should be the betterchoice for legislative translation because:â…°. it is impossible to transfer absolutely the exact style of the source text but thestylistic effect could be maintained by use of domesticated stylistic features;â…±. the transfer of absolute meaning is an illusion;â…². the same legal effect is the ideal pursuit of legislative translation; and,â…³. the acceptability and intelligibility of the translation of legislation is theprerequisite for the same legal effect in terms of both meaning and style.