Difficulties In Translating Chinese Laws And The Corresponding Strategies

With the deepening of China’s opening-up policy, especially after China joined theWTO, the English versions of Chinese laws and regulations have played an important rolein the international communication about laws and in foreign trade activities. However, asthe practice and research in the circle of Chinese law translation have been detached for along time, a lot of law translation work is done without the support of related translationtheories, and there is also much difficulty in establishing some systematic legal translationtheories. What’s more, such factors as the lack of specifications on legal terminologies, theobscurity of legal languages, the numerous long and complex sentences, and theunderstanding deviation due to legal cultural differences have increased the difficulty inthe translation of our country’s laws and regulations. We have already found variousproblems in law translation, such as poor quality versions, repeated translation of somecontents and cultural fissures because of the insuperable cultural differences and theinsurmountable legal translation obstacles.On the basis of the difficulties encountered in the process of translating The ContractLaw of the People’s Republic of China, this thesis analyzes and demonstrates the strategiesto tackle the difficulties by integrating the characteristics of legal language and theprinciples of law translation. It is hoped that the findings of this study can contribute a littleto the translation of laws and regulations in China.