On Translatability Of Legal Maxims

A legal maxim is usually a concise sentence implying a principle or ruleapplicable to the settlement of a legal event abstracted from legal practices, therefore,legal maxims can be valuable sources for the researches on the legal history and legalculture in western countries, thus introductions of legal maxims into China is of benefitto cultural exchanges and development of the legal system in our country. This thesisobserves legal maxims from the linguistic and translation-related perspectives, uponwhich previous studies have seldom touched, and strives to provide a justification forthe translatability of legal maxims. With the application of computer software andmanual calculation, features of legal maxims on both linguistic and cultural side aresummarized based on a total number of2342legal maxims taken from Black’s LawDictionary. Then factors diminishing such translatability resulted from those featuresof the maxims are analyzed, and corresponding translation strategies, including globaland local ones, are proposed. It is concluded that translatability of legal maxims isultimately achievable and obstacles caused by linguistic and cultural features of themaxims can be solved by employing various strategies in both comprehension andproduction processes.