Abstract

Legal translation is a complex transfer of the text formulated in a source language into a target language which needs to take into account a wide array of factors to ensure the equality of parties to the process of interlingual communication. It is an autonomous realm of cross-cultural events within which the system-bound of legal concepts/notions deeply rooted in language, history and societal evolution of one country are transformed and integrated into the language of another, and as a result, stratified over the course of time (Mattila in Comparative legal linguistics, Routledge, Aldershot, 2006). That aspect of legal translation is called the Third Space (Bhabha in: Ashcroft B, Griffiths G, Tiffin H (eds) The post-colonial studies readers. Routledge New York, pp 206–209, 1995). The authors investigate some aspects of the Third Space including (1) Protean meanings and diverging legal cultures which are constantly remodeled, (2) cultural codes, and communication stereotypes as well as (3) communication problems stemming from stratification of communication in legal settings. The research methods applied include the semiotic analysis of legal translation strategies and potential loss of meaning.

Highlights

  • Numerous scholars conducting research in legal translation turn attention to the socalled system bound or culture bound concepts and notions [6, 19, 46, 50, 51, 61], which exist in every natural language, including languages for specific purposes such as the language of the law

  • Legal translation is a space of possibilities, an autonomous realm of cross-cultural events within which the system-bound of legal concepts/notions deeply rooted in language, history and societal evolution of one country are transformed and integrated into the language of another, and as a result, stratified over the course of time [37]

  • Legal translation is not characterized by a quest of certainty but rather by an ongoing collectively accepted vision, meaning that variable phenomena can arise from one space to another, and so the legal translation process can be subject to appropriate notions/concepts/norms/standards, which are always local and limited in space

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Summary

Introduction

Numerous scholars conducting research in legal translation turn attention to the socalled system bound or culture bound concepts and notions [6, 19, 46, 50, 51, 61], which exist in every natural language, including languages for specific purposes such as the language of the law. The aim of the paper is to focus on the multidimensional aspect of translation, being the Third Space of communication, frequently expected to be transparent, invisible like a windowpane though requiring complex analyses, since it is a complicated decision-making process impacted by time, protean circumstances and sublime factors. Translators and interpreters need to know well the source and target languages and the source and target cultures, the communication modes, the cultural codes, including stereotyping and mentality affecting processes of reasoning and analyses [60] They are expected to have a proper psychological profile, which assumes that translators must be responsible, diligent, empathetic, impartial, objective and meticulous persons [16]. If one of the parties is deprived of the equal level of message comprehension, his/her rights may be discriminated against

Protean Meanings and Legal Cultures
Stratification of Communication in Legal Settings
Concluding Remarks

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