Text Type And Legal Translation

Judgments,the translation of which constitute a crucial part of legal translation as a whole,embody right construction and interpretation of law,fair settlement of disputes,and popularization of law education within one country which is under the rule of law.Judgments of the U.S.courts,wildly different from Chinese ones,are featured by confirmed facts,accurate application of law and precise logical reasoning and argumentation,which is highly valuable in terms of study and research.This report is based on a civil judgment from the Court of Appeals,Fourth Appellate District,California.The judgment concerned is in a dissolution of marriage between two males,which involves civil partnerships,same-sex marriages,and property disputes.With the changes of the times,the gay community has gradually entered the public's vision.Problems related to gay rights and interests have become common in China.Nevertheless,the relevant laws still remain incomplete.Therefore,cases of gay rights in other countries may serve as a reference for China's legislation.In the report,the key points of translation are mainly analyzed from the perspective of text typology.The reporter first finds out what are the features of descriptive language and prescriptive language in the source text.Then,the reporter discusses under what circumstances descriptive language and prescriptive language are mainly used in the source text.Finally,after comparative analysis,the translation strategies and methods for the descriptive language and the prescriptive language are presented respectively.?ar(?)evic believes that judgment belongs to the legal text type which is deemed as “primarily descriptive but also prescriptive”.According to the said classification of legal texts,under the guidance of static equivalence principle,the reporter adopts both foreignization and domestication as translation strategies for the descriptive language such as judge's description of the facts as well as the reasoning,and adopts both literal translation and liberal translation as translation methods.While for the prescriptive language,which takes subsidiary function such as the quotation of legislative texts,the reporter mainly adopts foreignization as translation strategy and literal translation as translation method.During the whole translation process,the general translation principle including accuracy and precision,consistency and identity,clarity and concision,professionalism and standardized language(Li & Zhang,2006:200-223)has been observed.The reporter expects that the judgment can provide reference to Chinese legislation.On the other hand,the translation problems and solutions proposed in this report can serve as a reference for judgment translations and relevant legal translations.