Translation Of Legislative Texts From The Perspective Of Relevance Theory

With the rapid development of global economy,legal translation is a vital role in international trade.The mistranslation of legal documents could lead to misunderstanding and lawsuits.Due to the significance of legal translation,much research has been devoted to this part.In western countries,Eugene Nida proposes functional equivalence theory,which has profound significance on translation study.Peter Newmark's communicative and semantic translation theories provide a new perspective for translation standards.In China,Chen Zhongcheng mainly focuses on the micro-level assessment of legal translation.Du Jinbang has been devoted to finding problems and solution with regard to English translation of Chinese laws.Research of legal translation under the framework of relevance theory remains an under-explored area.This thesis aims to analyze the translation strategies of legal text from the perspective of relevance theory,and mainly focuses on two aspects: lexicon and syntax.In the fourth chapter,by employing plentiful examples from the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods(CISG),the author comments on its Chinese translation and analyzes the translation strategies at lexical and syntactic levels under the framework of relevance theory.In lexical translation,the translator should have a precise comprehending of the original legal concepts and conform to the habitual way of Chinese legal writing style.In the translation of syntax,the translator should understand the English legal sentences and identify the implied meaning.Considering the difference of the syntactic structures between English and Chinese legislative texts,the translator should translate English legal sentences into Chinese ones that conform to the cognitive environment and abilities of Chinese readers.Hence,optimal relevance can be successfully achieved.This thesis can serve as a modest spur to enlighten scholars to contribute more to the study of legal translation and relevance theory,and to provide references for Chinese legal translators.