Legal Translation And Evolution Of Rule Of Law

Being a world-famous country with ancient civilization, China's legal history could be traced back to three thousand years ago and in such a long history with distinctive traditions, this country's legal development has walked over a torturous way full of wars, revolutions, sufferings and agonies. Keeping company with the development of law, legal translation in China has also experienced essential evolution and to some extent devoted a great deal to the construction of the government in accordance with the system of law.The fact that the development of legal translation coincides with the evolution of rule of law in China is obvious. From ancient time till today, its legal system has kept improving in the course of social evolution and has mainly experienced five phases, namely, the phase of before the Opium War; the phase from the Opium War to the establishment of the Republic of China; the phase of the Republic of China; the phase from the establishment of the People's Republic of China to the Cultural Revolution; and the contemporary time, in each of which legal translation always exhibited its distinctive characteristics due to the different social environment.In the first phase though China remained a feudal and conservative country almost having no contact with the outside world, legal translation activities could still be found in some missionaries'endeavor to introduce western geography and customs into the ancient country. After the breakout of the Opium War, the rushing in of foreign missionaries, conclusion of plentiful treaties, rapid growth of international affairs, and underdevelopment of legal institutions all contributed a great deal to the unprecedented prosperity of legal translation in China. In the third phase, although the political situation was unstable and society maintained turbulent, legal translation activities were still moving on and a sound"Six Laws System"was firstly established. In the fourth period when China was in an initiative phase of socialism and the priority was to improve the socialistic legal system, legal translation was mostly focused on Russian laws. And finally came the reform and opening up era, in which legal translation reached its second reminiscence because of emancipation of thoughts, enlightenment of government, booming-up of economy, and closer contact with the outside world.Undoubtedly, the successful operation of legal translation that inevitably exerts incredible impact upon China's legal development in different periods cannot be observed with a view isolated from social ideology and various translation patronages.This paper intends to examine the impact of legal translation upon the evolution of rule of law in China based on AndréLefevere's translation theory (social ideology element and patronage element). It starts out with a brief survey of the evolution (majorly concentrating on the change of legal thoughts and reform of legal institutions) and then inquires the history and the functions as well of legal translation with an aim to contribute some to contemporary legal translation studies in China.