The Translation Of Commonly-used Sentence Patterns In Legal Chinese: From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

Legal translation has drawn much more attention of the legal translators since China’sreform and opening up especially its entry into the WTO. On one hand, for the purpose ofmaking the whole world well understand Chinese legal systems and specific laws and rules,large amounts of Chinese legal documents are required to be translated in foreign languages.On the other hand, it is essential to translate numerous foreign legal writings into Chinese sothat Chinese legal workers can learn from foreign advanced legal figuration fruits. In theprocess of legal translation, it is obvious that studies on translation of legal Englishcommonly-used sentence patterns are thorough. Previous researchers have summarized tencommonly-used sentence patterns in legal English and sought for the translation strategies. Incontrast, some studies on translation of commonly-used sentence patterns in legal Chinese areless and scattered. It is not hard to discover that previous studies almost focus on somespecific commonly-used sentence pattern. Inductive observations are hardly seen.From the perspective of relevance theory, translation is a dynamic and dualostensive-inferential activity. The key to translation is the pursuit for optimal relevance. Thetranslation of commonly-used sentence patterns in legal Chinese, as a sort of special legaltranslation, inevitably touches upon the optimal relevance between the source text writer andthe target text readers. For the sake of the target text readers fully mastering the intention ofthe source text writer, translators must try the best to find the optimal relevance between them.Only in this way can the target text readers truly get the spirit of the source legal text.On the basis of the above discussion, this thesis attempts to specifically examine thetranslation of commonly-used sentence patterns in legal Chinese on the theoretical basis ofrelevance theory. Due to the particularity of the translation of commonly-used sentencepatterns in legal Chinese, this thesis elaborates the application of relevance theory to thetranslation of commonly-used sentence patterns in legal Chinese on the basis of the discussionabout the implication of relevance theory to legal translation. First, according to a concreteanalysis of the authoritative legal Chinese documents, this thesis summarizes ten sorts ofcommonly-used sentence patterns. They are structures of “的”,“不得” or “禁止”,“可” or “可 以”,“应” or “应该”,“对” or “对于”,“由”,“是”,“下列”,“为了” and “按照” or “依照”.Then, this thesis suggests the translation of the above ten commonly-used sentence patternsfrom the perspective of relevance theory. Except for the structure of “的” and the structure of“对” or “对于”, the other eight have relatively fixed authoritative translations. Therefore, thisthesis pays more attention to the selection of the translation of the structure of “的” and “对”or “对于” under the guidance of relevance theory. In terms of relevance theory, the structureof “的” may be translated into adverbial clause, attributive clause, subject clause,subject-complementing structure or prepositional phrase according to specific articles. Andthe structure of “对” or “对于” may be translated into object, attributive modifier, subject oradverbial form according to specific articles. In a word, the translation of commonly-usedsentence patterns in legal Chinese should be selected flexibly and in a reasonable form byfollowing the principle of consistency.