On Miscomprehension Of Legal Documents In English-Chinese Translation

The Uniform Commercial Code, a comprehensive code addressing most aspects of commercial law, is generally viewed as one of the most important developments in American law history and the most influential code in the world. It is regarded as the greatest statute law in the 20th century. Introducing such an influential code to China is of great significance for legislative perfection and law study in China.However, even for such an influential code, two Chinese versions of UCC (translated respectively by Pan Qi and Sun Xinqiang) are different from each other not only in ways of expression but also in meaning which may result in readers'confusion. Through comparison, I find that these differences reveal many miscomprehensions of the source text or miscomprehensions of the target text based on proper comprehension of the source text. As translator's comprehension directly affects readers'reception of information, a study on these miscomprehensions is of practical importance.The thesis studies translations of section headings distracted from UCC-Sales, discusses the cause of differences through source text analysis with the help of professional dictionaries, analyzes translators'miscomprehension and possible confusion on readers'side and proposes a preferable translation. Besides, the thesis also discusses about necessary qualifications of a legal translator, as they directly affect a translator's comprehension.The analysis of the thesis is still preliminary and superficial expecting perfection through continuous study on it. I hope that the modest beginning I have made in this thesis could serve to stimulate more efforts in improving translation qualities of this famous code as well as other legal works.