Problems of Translating Kurdish Legal Texts into English

Abstract

The problems involved in the translation of legal texts have grabbed the attention of many translators, linguists and researchers. These problems seem common in general but the level of difficulty seems to change according to certain factors.
 The current study aims at providing available definitions of legal translation, introducing legal language and its linguistic characteristics. In addition, it attempts to identify the best techniques and methods employed by professional legal translators and explore these methods and techniques in the selected samples and see how their effectiveness is evaluated.
 In order to achieve the aims above, the following hypotheses are set:
 
 The Non-standardized Kurdish language poses a challenge to translators in general and legal translators in particular. 2. The importance of form in legal texts could lead a legal translator to stick to literal translation even though it might be an inappropriate method at times. 3. Technical terms in legal texts are legal system and culture related. Therefore, it is also hypothesized that legal translators are especially troubled by them. 4. Syntactic structures of Kurdish legal texts do not pose any difficulty for legal translators. 5. The employment of the right translation method or strategy can fill the gaps that the different legal systems and language create.6. The teachers of the Department of Translation are less likely to make grammatical and spelling mistakes compared to the certified legal translators. The data chosen for analysis consist of two Kurdish texts, each has been translated by four translators. The analysis of the data is based on an eclectic model developed by the researchers for the specific objective of the study.
 
 The application of the eclectic model adopted to the selected data has validated all the hypotheses above. However, this difficulty can be overcome by employing the right translation strategies. The researcher found the translations of the teachers of translation to be more professional and contain very few mistakes, but they seem to be as troubled as the certified translators when it comes to legal terms.