O niektórych konsekwencjach odwoływania się do nieaktualnego stanu badań i innych mankamentach książki Joanny Krzywdy Terminologia języka prawnego i strategie translatorskie w przekładach Kodeksu spółek handlowych na język niemiecki, Kraków 2014, 172 str

Abstract

The article is a review of a book by Joanna Krzywda entitled The Terminology of Legal Language and the Translation Strategies in the Translations of “The Code of Partnerships and Companies” into German [ Terminologia j e zyka prawnego i strategie translatorskie w przek l adach Kodeksu spo l ek handlowych na j e zyk niemiecki ]. The book analyses the translations of The Code of Partnerships and Companies into German from the perspective of the translation of specialist terminology and the strategies used. In the introductory part of her book, Joanna Krzywda presents four published translations of The Code of Partnerships and Companies and her research goals. The first chapter is devoted to the explanation of the following categories: a notion, a term, terminology and a legal term. It also provides a detailed discussion of the characteristic features of legal terminology. The next chapter is devoted to the presentation of legal language against a background of other languages for special purposes and to the presentation of controversies surrounding the place of languages for special purposes in relation to the general language. Then the author describes translation strategies for legal translation, which is considered to be a type of cultural transfer. She emphasizes the fact that the translator of legal texts should not only perfectly master a given foreign language, but also should be familiarized with the legal system of the countries between whose languages she or he translates. The knowledge of legal systems provides the basis for the search for terminological equivalents. This latter issue is analysed in the next chapter. The author’s analysis in this respect is based on the model of five types of denotative equivalence developed by Werner Koller. In the fifth chapter, the previous theoretical approaches are applied in practice and the translation strategies used in the analysed translations of The Code of Partnerships and Companies are examined. The main drawback of the book is that the academic literature referred to in it is the literature published predominantly in the 20th century. Joanna Krzywda did not take into account more recent books, periodicals and conferences devoted to translatology. Another drawback is that she makes unjustified generalizations about translatology. Sometimes she even gives incorrect information. The authors of the review also paid attention to the mistakes relating to the structure of the book and to an unclear connection between its theoretical part and the part containing the empirical research on the legal terminology adopted in the translations of The Code of Partnerships and Companies .