On The Application And Translation Of Fuzzy Words In Laws And Regulations Of China

With more and more frequent international communication, the perfection and exquisite translation of China’s laws and regulations becomes a significant part of China’s wider opening to the world, as it would help the foreigners have a better understanding about laws and regulations of China.Lawmakers and legal translators always try to make the language as precise as possible. However, legislative language has the characteristic of fuzziness in nature. As a result, precise legislation and legal translation is never easy because of the existence of fuzziness. In recent years, linguists in an increasing number devote themselves to the study of fuzziness in legislative language. However, few scholars take laws and regulations of China as data foundation to analyze the concrete, effective C-E translation methods of fuzzy words. Therefore, the author makes a comprehensive study on the application and translation of fuzzy words in laws and regulations of China with the aim to help people have a correct attitude towards fuzziness in legislative language and to give some suggestions to those who practice legal translation when encounter fuzzy words.On the basis of previous studies, the author aims to find answers to three questions:1. Why do fuzzy words exist in legislative language which is supposed to be precise?2. From the perspective of word class, what kinds of fuzzy words show high frequency of occurrence in legislative language?3. In dealing with those fuzzy words in China’s laws and regulations, what kinds of effective translation methods can we summarize under the enlightenment of equivalent translation and functional translation theories?The linguistic data used is mainly collected from twelve domestic laws and regulations and their corresponding English versions. On the basis of abundant collected data, the thesis has shed some light on the application and translation of fuzzy words in legislative language both theoretically and practically. The author comes to the following conclusions:1. Fuzziness is an inherent property in legislative language and the existence of fuzzy words is justified; fuzziness plays its role as an aid to precision instead of a disturbance in legislative language.2. Fuzziness in legislative language mainly emerges in four forms:fuzzy boundary of noun’s, verb’s, adjective’s and adverb’s conceptual meaning.3. On the basis of equivalent translation and functional translation theories and analysis of numerous examples, four effective and concrete C-E translation methods are summarized: equivalence, converting, adding and omitting. And the author also holds the view that legal translators should develop their subjectivity and exert their creativity on condition that faithfulness is guaranteed.