Explication And Implication In Legal Translation-From The Perspective Of Skopos Theory

With China's accession to WTO, the acceleration of its legalization process, and the increase of the communication with foreign countries, a large number of China's legal documents are translated into foreign languages every year. Meanwhile, in order to develop in line with world economic and trade rules and international practice, as well as to take part in the international economic and political activities, we need to further understand international economic and trade laws, other relevant foreign laws and the comparatively integrated legal systems of developed countries, so as to learn from them, absorb their essence and improve our legislative quality. Hence, how to achieve the exact communicative purpose and what theory can be applied to guide the legal translation have become the focus for legal translators and researchers.There has always been a long-standing dispute between literal translation and free translation, domestication and forerignization, and translatability and untranslatability in translating circles. In fact, the key to the solution is how to decode the source text and how to properly deal with implication and explication in the process of re-encoding. The information revealed by matters, things, relations in any text may be meaningful and implicit rather than being expressed in an explicit way. It is very crucial to get correct understanding and accurate transmission of implicit information because it is virtually impossible for texts in different languages to be formulated exactly with the same explicit wording and implicit information. In order to convey messages included in the source text accurately and completely, the ideas, which are both expressed explicitly and implicitly in source language, should be dealt with in a proper way. It is the characteristics of target language and the communicative purposes of the target text that determine the application of implication and explication.Functionalist translation theory, as a new approach to translation, "casts attention to the dissemination and reception of the target text in a new culture, and takes notice of the final communicative purpose and effect of translational activity as well as the role played by translators in the process of translation."(谢天振, 2001:4). As to legal translation, Skopos theory has set a reasonable framework for legal translators in a macrocosmic way: Skopos Rule shows a right direction of translation; Fidelity Rule and Coherence Rule set the guiding line for the translators; Loyalty Principle enhances the sense of responsibility of for translators. The theory enables translators free from the limitation of "how to translate" and endows them with higher status and greater freedom in legal translation. Therefore, there is indeed a possibility to translate foreign laws into Chinese, which confirms to the characteristics of Chinese legal language while retaining the original meaning of the source language.On the basis of the main viewpoints of functionalist translation theory—Skopos Theory, this paper elaborates on the features and application of implication and explication in both E-C and C-E legal translation. According to the three rules of Skopos Theory, quantities of examples in translation practice are cited to illustrate the changes of surface structure and coherence of deep structure between the source text and the target text. Through the analysis, the author of the paper tries to put forward her personal advice on how to properly handle the implicit and explicit information in the translation, and avoid transmitting loss of culture on the basis of both faithfulness to the source text and coherence of the readers' comprehension of the target text. Thus, the intercourse will be realized among the source text writer, the translator and target text readers and then the purpose of cross- cultural communication can be well achieved.This paper is presented in six chapters. In Chapter One, the author analyzes some basic concepts about explication and implication as well the necessity to apply them to legal translation. In addition, the purpose and new points of the research subject are also put forward in this part.Chapter Two summarizes the legal text features and gives a brief review of legal translation both in foreign countries and in China. At the end of this chapter, the author introduces Skopos theory as a new approach to legal translation.Chapter Three is the theoretical basis of the paper. After introducing four important functionalist scholars who have made great contributions to the innovation and development of Skopos theory, the author explains "Three Skopos rules", "Loyalty Principle", and their interrelations.Chapter Four demonstrates in details the feasibility of applying Skopos theory to legal translation from skopos rule, coherence rule, fidelity rule and loyalty principle.Chapter Five is the analysis of the application of explication and implication in legal translation from the perspective of Skopos Theory through sufficient examples. In addition, the author also proposes some suggestions when handling the explication and implication.Chapter Six is the conclusion.For the purpose of inspiring systematic, objective and highly-professional analysis of legal translation, this paper has just done a tentative job to function as, what is called, "casting bricks to attract jades.'" In other words, it is sincerely hoped that this paper can be of a little help and more valuable research in legal translation will prosper in the near future.