Loss Compensation And Legal Translation

As is well-known, language differences and cultural disparity will lead to loss in the process of translation. It is particularly obvious with written translation because of the lack of situation and the gap of time and space. No matter what type the text is, there is no exception. Under such circumstance, translation compensation, as a device to reduce the loss, is proved of great importance. However, in ancient time, people knew little about the nature of language and blindly worshiped it, so they seldom talked about translation compensation, especially when they translated holy books. With the continuous deepening understanding of language, people's view toward translation shifted from the Source Language (hereafter is called "SL") to the Target Language (hereafter is called "TL") gradually, and even to the cultural dimension. At this time they found loss that occurs in the translation is very common. At the end of the 20th century, people gradually recognized the importance of compensation and began to study on it. Although research achievements in this field are far behind other sub-branches of the science of translation, its importance is out of doubt. In view of the significance of compensation study on the theory development and the practice of translation, this author tries to have a brief description of the loss in the translation and its compensation, and introduces the research achievements in the general areas of translation to legal translation, namely a kind of translation in the particular area of law, hoping that this thesis can give some guidance and help to the practice of legal translation and provide the legal translator a new way of thinking.Inasmuch as the objectivity, preciseness and conservativeness of legal language, legal translation has always been regarded as a kind of translation which places the strictest demand on translators and even as a process of mere linguistic transcoding. Therefore, the rigid word-for-word translation has been preserved as a golden principle for legal translation in a long time. Nonetheless, as translation studies are advancing, legal translation has grown into a transcultural phenomenon, in which all factors centered around translators interact with each other, translators take the initiative in decision-making, and translators conduct compensative thinking within the given framework in order to decrease loss as much as possible. Due to differences in languages and discrepancies in the cultural background, especially in legal systems, it is not enough for us if we just translate legal texts word for word. For example, literal translation sometimes cannot reach the goal of precise communication of information, or the Target Text (hereafter is called "TT") is difficult to read. So if translators fail to decrease the potential loss actively, he will violate the principle of preciseness, and the quality and reliability of the TT will be challenged. Starting from this point, this author is in the favor that legal translators should take the thought of compensation as a common thought consciously in the total process of translation, and can apply compensation strategies actively to deal with the potential loss. If so, the TT will be in a relatively high quality and can be easily read, then the goal of effective legal communication can be achieved. As a return, the applying of loss compensation to legal translation also will promote the development and prosperity of compensation, especially in the field of non-literary translation.This thesis consists of three parts: Introduction, Main Body and Conclusion, which will be discussed as follows:In the part of Introduction, this thesis describes the current situation of legal translation in China and its research achievements at the begining. Then it presents an overview of the present study by introducing its objective, significance, methodology and other issues concerned.Altogether five chapters are included in the Main Body:Chapter 1 gives a brief description of translation equivalence. By quoting different views on it, this thesis shows that there is a lack of exact equivalence in translation and the translation loss is unavoidable. At the end of this chapter, the concept of loss is detailed and defined on the basis of being compared with the paradox of translatability and untranslatability.Chapter 2 briefly introduces the mechanism of translation compensation. It firstly discusses the definitions of compensation, and then proves the possibility of compensation from the perspective of isomorphism: universal life, universal logical thinking, linguistic universality and cultural permeability. At the end, it analyzes the premise of compensation, namely the existence of loss. The reasons of loss are discussed in detail from the aspects of language differences, cultural disparity and a non-ideal channel of information transferring.Chapter 3 explores the possibility and necessity of applying of compensation to legal translation. With a literature review of the study on compensation in general translation and its situation of current research in legal translation, this author concludes that compensation is not only an effective translation strategy but also a common way of thinking. Therefore, it can be applied into legal translation. In addition, this chapter analyzes the specific connotation of translation equivalence in legal translation--the equivalence of information (in meaning and in style). After observing the paradox of pursuing preciseness and lacking of exact equivalence in legal translation, this author proposes that legal translators should apply compensation strategies actively to decrease the loss into a minimum.On the basis of having a comparative and contrastive study of Chinese and English, Chapter 4 describes and analyzes the compensation in legal translation on different levels. As to the linguistic level, it is discussed from the aspects of lexis, grammar and syntax. As to the non-linguistic level, it is discussed mainly from the aspect of legal culture.Chapter 5 outlines some specific compensation strategies. On the linguistic level, this author suggests that adaptive strategies such as conversion, amplification, omission and repetition could be used, with the purposes of being faithful to the Source Text(hereafter is called "ST") and improving the readability of the TT. While for cultural components in translation, foreignized strategies such as paraphrase and transliteration or literal translation with notes are commended in order to maintain the cultural information of the ST and achieve the goals of communication and learning from each other.In the last part, this author concludes that though there is a lack of exact equivalence in legal translation arising from the differences embedded in the two legal languages and the disparity in legal cultures (especially legal systems) and there is an unavoidability of translation loss, the loss could be deduced into an acceptable and satisfactory degree and the equivalence of information in meaning and in style can be achieved to the maximum. Legal translation is so extensive and profound that requires translators not only to have a good competence of language but also familiar with translation techniques. This thesis is only a beginning of this author's study on loss compensation and legal translation, and she hopes that this thesis could draw more attention and interest on this research field—the study of compensation in legal translation.