Logic Attributes Of Thematic Progression In Legislative Text And Translation Approaches

As the most important means to represent the logical thinking pattern, thematicprogressions have not only determined the construction of legislative text, but also governedthe distribution of textual informational structure. For this reason, this dissertation tookCriminal Law of the People’s Republic of China adopted by the Second Session of the FifthNational People’s Congress on July1,1979and amended by the Fifth Session of the EighthNational People’s Congress on March14,1997as a sample of corpus. The author hasclassified452articles and752sections into proposition of nature, proposition of definition,proposition of norm, proposition of reference and proposition of statement so as to analyzethe textual construction, thematic progression and informational structure. Although theheterogeneity existed between civil law system and common law system, both strictly observethe logical rule at the level of legislative text. Logic embedded in legislative text mainly isrepresented in the construction of legislative text. No matter from macro view or micro view,logic is pervasive everywhere. In order to make the text more cohesive and coherent, logicalconnectors are extensively used, and even the distribution of textual information structure alsostrictly observes the logical thinking pattern. Owing to the inherent difference in theorganization structure and language expression between Chinese and English, theconstructions of legislative text are demonstrated in different logical thinking patterns.Therefore, in the process of legal translation, how to transmit the information of source legaltext into target language without prejudice to the logic embed in rule of law is an importantstandard to tell whether the translation is successful or not. High command of the accuracyand fidelity is proposed for English translation version, which not only represents the originalmeaning and the legislative intent, but also achieves the equivalent legal effect. Therefore, inthis dissertation, translation strategies were proposed to the various logical thinking patternsembedded in different propositions so as to achieve the accuracy and equivalence. Thisdissertation has not only proposed a new approach to study the Chinese legislative text in theprospective of logic, but also proposed some novel approaches to be observed in the processof Chinese legislative translation.