| This paper is a probe into legal terminology translation from the perspective offrame semantics. As economic globalization progresses, law is more and morecombined together with other cultural products and services. There are no twoidentical laws in the world, as the law is a concentrated expression of a nation’shistory, culture and social values. Therefore it is important that it not be avoided bydifferent nations to exchange and communicate with their respective laws andregulations, and translation is the bridge to this achievement.To study legal terminology translation from a frame semantics perspective, doesnot only intend to transfer the meaning of the terms, but more to reveal thecorrelation between word meaning and the elements embedded in the words, such aslegal systems and legal cultures of both the source language country and the targetlanguage country. Meanwhile, translation study based on frame semantics theoryintegrates language, frame and meaning, so it can help translators master theinformation of the source text more comprehensively.As the core and basic element of legal text and legal culture, legal terminologydeserves legal translators’ special attention. However, it is not easy to reach theadequate translations of legal terminologies, which involves various factors. Thecrux of legal terminology translation is the lack of equivalence, on both linguisticand functional level. This thesis aims at analyzing the meanings of legal terms in theguidance of frame semantics theory, so as to figure out effective compensationstrategies when translating legal terms from English to Chinese or from Chinese toEnglish.Starting with the research question as how to effectively translate legal termsand precisely convey the legal culture embedded in legal terms, this thesis analyzesthe evolution of Frame in three phases, i.e. the case frames expressing the deepstructure valence description of predicating words; the linguistic frames in“scenes-and-frames-paradigm” specifying any system of linguistic choices that can get associated with prototypical instances of scenes; and the cognitive framesrepresenting “specific unified frameworks of knowledge, or coherentschematizations of experience” and “cognitive structures”. Subsequently the thesisdiscusses the characteristics of frames from cognitive perspective, frame elementsand their relationships, and the cultural differences existing in the frames indifferent languages, so as to expound the similarities and differences in the contentsof frames between different languages. And the objective of legal terminologytranslation is to seek out the linguistic expression in the target language that canactivate the same or similar cognitive frame as in the source language and realizethe coordination of frame elements. The process of translation includes identifyingthe frame and frame elements activated by the source text, based on humancognitive structures and experience, producing the holistic schemata, then accordingto the activated frame, to retrieve the corresponding expression in the targetlanguage that can activate the same frame and realize the coordination of frameelements. In this process the strategies being employed include matching frames,adjusting frames and creating frames.The study of applying frame semantics to legal terminology translationcomprehensively takes into account of the relationship between meaning and humancognition, and the cultural background knowledge contained in the terms. Hence,this research has both theoretical significance and practical significance. In addition,the limitations of this research and suggestions for further research are presented atthe end. |
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