Report On C-E Translation Of Common Words In Legal Descriptions Of Written Opinion Of The International Searching Authority

With rapid development of the global economy, people focus more and more on intellectual property protection. International Patent Cooperation Treaty, served as an international procedure of patent application, has become matured around the world. Under the Treaty, Written Opinion of International Searching Authority(WOSA) plays an important role in evaluating and granting the patentability of products. Based on the Guidelines for the Translation of Patentability Report and previous studies of common words in legal descriptions, this paper studies translation techniques of common words in legal descriptions in WOSA. The paper classifies translated WOSA texts and performs random stratified sampling to collect translation errors. Through analyzing collected translation errors, this paper identifies translation problems of common words in legal descriptions of WOSA: lacking formality, accuracy and vagueness. On this basis, a Chinese-to-English comparison language database is established by using Winalign and Trados. After that, by searching the database and comparing its preliminary and revised translation texts, this paper finally draws a conclusion that a translator should use professional legal terms, Old English, and borrowed words to maintain formality of the legal descriptions; use exact limitation words and avoid using pronouns to keep the legal descriptions accurate; use proper modal verbs and vague words to preserve vagueness of the legal descriptions.