Comments On The English Version Of The Collection Of Regulations On International Shipping Of The People's Republic Of China

This thesis presents a preliminary study of the features of legal document translation through making comments on the English version of the Collection of Regulations on International Shipping of the People's Republic of China.The Collection of Regulations on International Shipping of the People's Republic of China is promulgated in publication NO. 1 of 2000 by the Department of Water Transport of the Ministry of Communications (the MOC) and is deemed as a milestone in China's quest to provide a legal framework by the competent authorities of communications in the new century.In today's world, the volatile and complicated international situation reflects the trend of multipolarity in the world pattern and globalization in the economic development. The intensified competition has been shown in the world trade and the shipping market as well. Faced with unprecedented challenges and opportunities, the international shipping industry of China will keep strategic balance and stability by means of adopting measures to accelerate the reform pace in the new century. Undoubtedly, the Collection will exert far-reaching impact on the shipping enterprises both at home and abroad. In the meantime, the English version is vital to the accurate understanding and smooth implementation of the Collection. The significance of good translationlies not only in the academic field, but also in the economic and social life of China. Moreover, the qualified English version of the Collection has the direct connection with safeguarding the legitimate rights and interests of foreign shipping enterprises in China as well as strengthening the administration of international shipping industry.After the APEC meeting and China's WTO accession, more and more legal documents will be translated into English and introduced to the 'world. Nevertheless, deficiencies do exist in the legal document translation of our country at present. The problems may fall into seven types: 1) spelling and grammatical mistakes; 2) additions, omissions or taking words too literally; 3) mistranslation of terminology; 4) improper style; 5) incorrect understanding of the original; 6) lack of good command of language; and 7) problems caused by the differences in legal cultures.It is obvious that some demerits and mistakes also exist in the English version of this Collection. The note on the front page of the Collection should be mentioned here: The Chinese text in this Collection shall be deemed as authentic while the English translation be just for reference. Namely, the English version of this Collection is non-official and some demerits do exist. Therefore, this Collection is not a static instrument, but rather a dynamic and evolving body of law that must be vigorously safeguarded and its implementation aggressively advanced. Under such circumstances, this thesis is an attempt to establish some practical principles of legal document translation.The whole thesis can be divided into four chapters.Chapter I is the general introduction to the publication of this Collection and importance of the English translation.Chapter II deals with stylistic and linguistic features of legal English and four principles of legal document translation, pointing out that thegeneral translation theories also apply to legal document translation and good translation should follow the four basic principles of accuracy, smoothness, brevity and sincereness.Chapter III is the detailed analysis of merits in the lexical and syntactic aspects of this Collection. The features of legal document translation result in careful choice of words and meticulous arrangement for sentence structure.Chapter IV gives an exposition of the demerits in five aspects and some tentative corrections are also suggested, which might be of use in the later revision of the Collection.Conclusions are made in the end. Legal document translation is a new field in China's translation circle. Legal document translators should be good at not only languages but also some knowledge of t...