Legal transplants and legal translation: a case study of the borrowing of the U.S. limited liability partnership into the Polish legal system

Abstract

ABSTRACT The phenomenon of legal transplants, which refers to the diffusion of law across legal systems, is widely discussed by comparatists. The present paper seeks to explore its links with legal translation, so far mainly observed from the comparative law perspective, focusing on the impact of legal transplants on translation practice. To achieve this goal, one specific case is discussed, namely the borrowing of the U.S. limited liability partnership into the Polish legal system. This particular case raises the question of whether the term spółka partnerska, designating this relatively new Polish structure, and the term ‘limited liability partnership’ may be used as natural (functional) equivalents. Answering it becomes more complex when one realises that an entity called ‘limited liability partnership’ was subsequently also introduced in the United Kingdom – yet in a fundamentally different form. To identify the implications that these legal transplants have for legal translators, the nature of the U.S., U.K. and Polish business structures is discussed, and their essential features are compared. The findings demonstrate that the dynamics involved in legal transplants are likely to produce terminological traps, which, in turn, suggests that translators should be aware of this phenomenon and take particular care when faced with it.