A Corpus-Based Comparative Study To The English Translation Of Modal Operators

The Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China(hereinafter referred to as “The Civil Code”)is the first law named “Code” since the founding of the People’s Republic of China.An accurate English translation of The Civil Code is helpful for transmitting China’s legal culture and promoting the legal exchanges among different legal systems.Based on the modality system theory,quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted to describe,compare and analyze modal operators used in the source text of The Civil Code and its two full English translations issued by PKULAW.COM(hereinafter referred to as “PKU”)and the National People’s Congress(hereinafter referred to as “NPC”).Firstly,two parallel corpora are established with each containing the original text of The Civil Code and its corresponding English translation.Taking the Parallel Corpora of China’s Legal Documents(Hong Kong)(hereinafter referred to as “PCCLDHK”)as the reference corpus,the features of modal operators are analyzed from three aspects: distribution,value and polarity.Then this study analyzes the translation of the four most frequently used modal operators in The Civil Code and probes into the reasons for the abuse of “shall” and the misuse of the structure of “modal verb + extension of predicator”.The study shows that in the aspect of features of modal operators used in The Civil Code and its translations,compared with PCCLDHK,both English translations overuse the modal operator “shall”.As for the translation of modal operators,both translations violate the principle of consistency.The reasons for these problems can be ascribed to the following four aspects: 1)translators are influenced by “legalese and lawyerism” in English;2)translators’ probability in vocabulary selection;3)translators neglect the trend of language development;4)and relevant research results do not receive enough attention by legal translators.This study proposes that“应当”should be translated into“shall”,“可以”should be translated into“may”,“必须”should be translated into“must”,“不得”should be translated into the negative forms of“shall”in prohibition norms,or the negative forms of“may”in norms that express restrictions on rights or power,and“不能”should be translated into the negative forms of“can”.