A Report On The Translation Of United States V. Virginia

In common law countries,judicial precedent is the major source of law.These countries follow the principle of precedent,or stare decisis,which is either binding on or persuasive for a court or other tribunal when deciding subsequent cases with similar issues or facts.Common law legal systems place great value on deciding cases according to consistent principled rules so that similar facts will yield similar and predictable outcomes.Therefore,the essence of case law and the constitutional spirit of the common law countries can be learned through judgments.The author selected for translation a representative judgment issued by the Supreme Court of the United States,which involved discussion about whether to accept women into Virginia Military Institute.This representative judgment,proceeding from the Equal Protection Clause,discussed the legitimacy of gender classification.Under the guidance of Li Kexing's basic principles of legal translation and the static equivalence theory,the author completed the translation of the judgment.According to the problems in translation practice,the author completes the report of translation practice based on case analysis and experience summarization from three levels of vocabulary,syntax and text,combined with specific examples.First,at the lexical level,the consistency of legal terminology shall be maintained,the meaning of common words with legal meaning shall be analyzed according to the context,and loanwords shall be correctly translated.Second,at the syntactic level,under the premise of ensuring the equivalence of meaning,equivalence of structure shall be achieved to the greatest extent;for other sentences that cannot be literally translated,division and combination can be adopted.Third,at the textual level,the layout,formality and the style of the judgment shall be carefully reproduced;same quotations shall be consistent in translation.Having summarized and reflected on the translation practice,the author hopes that this report will provide reference and guidance for future legal translation practice.