Domestication And Foreignization In E-C Translation Of Legal Texts: From The Perspective Of Legal Cultural Context

Translation is an intercultural communication between two countries with differentcultural backgrounds. Because of the differences of legal cultures, the translation of legal textsproves to be a sort of intercultural communication. But nowadays, the studies of legaltranslation simply focus on the equivalence of legal expression on linguistic level, ignoringthe importance of legal cultural context.On the basis of the differences of legal cultures between China and Anglo-Americancountries and the functions of legal cultural context in the E-C translation of legal texts, thispaper discusses the application of domestication and foreignization in E-C translation of legaltexts. Firstly, the author gives a general introduction of factors of legal culture, includingdifferent histories of law, spirits of law, legal systems and uses of legal language, and analyzesthe differences of legal cultures between China and Anglo-American countries.Then theauthor discusses the functions of legal cultural context in the translation of legal texts, whichare absolute function, explanatory function and constraint function. Finally, by using someE-C translation examples of legal texts, the author illustrates the two translation strategies:domestication and foreignization and explores the application of these two translationstrategies on lexical level and syntactic level by using some specific translation methods. Andthe author concludes that by being in compliance with the different legal cultural factors,these two translation strategies are used to narrow the cultural gap in legal translation.