A Report On The E-C Translation Of The Employment Standards Act (Excerpts)

With the development of economic globalization, legal activities have been playing an increasingly important role in the current world. Many popular foreign legal theories and their latest development as well as many works of pundits have been introduced into China, which offers rich and valuable information regarding legal culture for Chinese jurisprudential circle, legislatures, judicial authorities and even all Chinese people. A great number of experts and scholars at home and abroad have already made valuable exploration in the study of legal English and legal translation. In general, however, the research of legal English in our country is far from meeting the needs of practice. Therefore, the study of legal English is of vital significance.Based on the E – C translation of some excerpts of Employment Standards Act, a typical legal document which was decreed by Ontario, Canada in 2000, the present translation report exemplifies the lexical and syntactic features of legal English, analyses the difficulties encountered in translation practice from linguistic and cultural aspects, and finally concludes the translating techniques adopted in the translation. The sentences with features of legal English frequently appear in the original text, ranging from the use of ordinary words with legal meaning, formal expression, and vague words to the employment of passive voice, conditional clause and long sentence.This report suggests that the translator should acquire some relevant legal knowledge and improve the proficiency of both languages due to the language features mentioned above and differences in legal cultures. The translator should be aware that the Common Law System highlights the previous judgment of The High Court, whereas the Civil Law System mainly relies on the Statute Law. Besides, the translator can adopt certain techniques in translating practice, such as amplification, conversion, inversion, division and the change of voices. It is hoped that this report could provide some reference and help for readers and translators in the related field.