Translation Of Legal Texts Research Articles

Contrastive Analysis of Arabic-English Translation of Legal Texts

The present study aims to provide a contrastive analysis of Arabic-English translation of ten legal texts with an eye to evaluating the accuracy of the translation. The researcher collected the data from El-Farahaty’s (2015) Arabic–English–Arabic Legal Translation. A contrastive analysis was developed to assess the accuracy of the translation of the legal texts selected. The examination of the source legal texts and the translations provided either by the authoress of the book herself or the sources from which she collected them revealed serious errors such as overtranslation, omission of translating important words in the source texts, wrong choice of equivalents in the target language, gloss translation, punctuation mistakes in the target texts and grammatical mistakes in the target texts. Further research on the assessment of Arabic-English translation of legal texts is required to encourage professional legal translators and scholars to approach legal translation more professionally and responsibly.

ПЕРЕВОДЧЕСКИЙ КОММЕНТАРИЙ КАК СРЕДСТВО ДОСТИЖЕНИЯ РЕПРЕЗЕНТАТИВНОСТИ НА УРОВНЕ ТЕКСТА (НА ПРИМЕРЕ НАЗВАНИЙ СУДЕБНЫХ ИНСТАНЦИЙ ВЕЛИКОБРИТАНИИ И ИХ ПЕРЕВОДА НА РУССКИЙ ЯЗЫК)

The paper focuses on some issues of representative translation of legal texts from English into Russian at the text level. One of the most topical issues of legal translation is system-bound terms and their proper representative translation, which is quite significant for English–Russian translation due to differences in the legal systems. In order to ensure representative translation, the author proposes to use translation commentary, which is widely used in literary translation but rarely while working with technical texts. Main functions and classifications of such commentary are described. Legal translation is to be provided with the commentary which focuses on linguistic as well as cultural differences.

On the Question of the Peculiarities of the Translation of Legal Texts

The article examines the use and translation of key terms of Roman law: “proprietas”, “possessio” and “detentio”, which were used in medieval texts in one way or another; at least when it comes to the act material of medieval Italy. Despite the fact that the translation of “possessio” as «владение» has been established in Russian romanistics, the translator must take into account that in Russian the use of the words «владение», «владелец» has certain features. The main problem is that until now, often (with the exception of scientific works of lawyers), the term «владелец» is used to refer to the person who owns the property right, the owner, contrary to the dichotomy between the concepts of «владение» and «собственность». Problems also arise when translating into English. Belonging of England to the Anglo-Saxon legal system leads to difficulties in transferring legal terms of the continental system based on Roman law. Researchers and translators of Latin legal texts can avoid accusations of inaccuracy by resorting to the use of legal terms in Latin in the text, or by duplicating the Latin translation of such a term into English or another language.

European Labour Law and its Challenges in Multilingual Terminology and Translation: A Case Study

The translation of legal texts has become a very important activity in our modern, international societies. Globalization has created a great need for multilingual versions of all kinds of legal texts. However, both law itself and legal language and terminology have a special characteristic: they are system-bound. Every country or autonomous region sets up its own legal system, and this has far-reaching consequences not only for the drawing up and especially the translation of legal texts, but also for comparative law and international and European law.
 In this article, we describe certain typical features of the terminology of labour law and expand on one particular term to show the problems in translation work. The multilingual character of European law, the need for translation and the specific wording of labour law texts in the individual member states lead to many translation problems and to legal insecurity for citizens. By analysing relevant terms in the transport sector, we discuss current research that compares concepts and terms in European, Polish, Dutch and Belgian labour law.

Translation in Terms of Law and Communication: Difficulties Regarding the Translation of Legal Texts from Albanian into German and Vice Versa

This article deals with the peculiarities of translating legal terminology from German into Albanian and vice versa. Legal texts constitute an important part of translation into both languages. Translations of legal texts in Albania have increased since the latter's attempts to join the EU. European Union translation materials are in large volumes and require a lot of work. Therefore, the request for translation of legal documents, such as provisions or court decisions into other languages of the Union, including German, has increased. Despite institutional efforts to draft a glossary of legislation with the cooperation of professionals led by the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation), as well as some efforts made in compiling Albanian-German legal dictionaries, there are no genuine publications in the Albanian language that handle the problems of translation in this field. Since technical legal language is a practical or institutional language, it is characterized by a high percentage of technical terms as well as a standardized sentence structure. Legal language is characterized by accuracy and clarity. Received: 5 May 2021 / Accepted: 23 June 2021 / Published: 8 July 2021

مشاکل التنوع اللغوي عند ترجمة النصوص القانونية بين الألمانية والعربية Problems of Linguistic Variation in German/Arabic Translation of Legal Texts

الملخص: تختلف المصطلحات القانونية في اللغات التي تتحدثها أکثر من دولة باختلاف الثقافة والمشارب القانونية وتعدد التفسير القانوني والمذهب الفقهي، مما يعتبر ثراء لهذا المجال الواسع، إلا أن التنوع اللغوي في البلاد التي تتحدث نفس اللغة يؤدي أحيانا إلى مشکلة عند ترجمة النصوص القانونية، خصوصا عند وجود تبادل تجاري واجتماعي بين ثقافة هذه اللغة ولغة أخرى مثيلة، وهو ما ينطبق على الألمانية والعربية باعتبارها لغات رسمية تتعدد مراکزها اللغوية. وتحاول هذه الدراسة التعرف على ظاهرة التعدد اللغوي وتحديد أسباب وجودها في الترجمة القانونية وذکر بعض الأمثلة لذلک من مجالات قانونية متعددة، مع وضع اقتراحات لحل المشکلة، ولفت النظر إليها، ومن ذلک مثلا استخدام المکافئ الوظيفي في الترجمة بين الألمانية والعربية إذا کان المکافئ الدلالي لا يفي بغرض الترجمة بين اللغتين، وکان استخدامه سيؤدي إلى سوء فهم، وبالتالي إشکالات قانونية. Abstract:Legal terminology differs in the languages ​​spoken by more than one country according to the culture, the legal paths and the multiplicity of legal interpretation and jurisprudence, which enrich this wide field. However, the linguistic variation in countries that speak the same language sometimes leads to a problem when we translate legal texts, especially when there is a commercial and social exchange between the culture of this language and another similar language. This applies to German and Arabic as official pluricentric languages. This study attempts to identify the phenomenon of lexical variation (multilingualism), determine the reasons for its existence in legal translation and mention some examples of that from various legal fields. It also attempts to develop proposals (suggestions) to solve the problem and draw attention to it. One example is the use of the functional equivalent in translation between German and Arabic when the semantic equivalent does not meet (serve) the purpose of translation between the two languages, and which, if used, would lead to misunderstanding and thereby legal problems.

Comparing Translation Peculiarities of Legal Texts in The Russian and Persian Languages

Translation of legal texts requires special attention and great accuracy. In legal texts words have legal connotations and legal consequences, which enable either to protect the interests of legal entities and individuals, or, on the contrary, violate their rights. Inappropriate translations of legal texts cause misunderstanding and vagueness, which is unacceptable in this type of texts. The compendium of legal texts in Iran is based on general legal law and jurisprudential principles. The lack of bilingual legal RussianPersian and Persian-Russian dictionaries enhances the translation problems in this field. This fact suggests that due attention has not been paid to such an important issue in the field of linguistics. The current criterion used in the translation of legal documents is the objective interpretation of the text. The identification of the problem can help solve it. The subject of this article was the legal content focused on legal family and financial texts. The purpose of our research is to reveal the difficulties translators of legal texts in these languages face, to study the best examples of translation accumulated by far and to help translators of legal texts by integrating translators’ experiences and publishing comparative works that reveal cultural and semantic connotations in two languages.

Multidimensional Contextual Adaptation and the Translation of Legal Texts

Multidimensional Contextual Adaptation and the Translation of Legal Texts

Issues on the translation of scientific legal articles and lectures

The article describes issues based on the translation of scientific legal articles and lectures. Studies of modern philologists contain valuable additions to the methodological provisions developed by legal scholars. With regard to translations of legal texts, it can be argued that interpretation errors caused by ambiguity of terms often occur in the case of blind search following the meanings indicated in dictionaries. Literal translation is a translation at a lower level than literally required. Thus, the best choice for a translator would be an adequate translation.

"Dealing with Syntactic Discontinuities in the Translation of Legal Texts"

An important structural feature of the legal discourse is represented by the presence of the qualifications, which are inserted within the structure of the legislative sentence at exactly those points where their meaning is most clearly and most appropriately rendered. This principle is meant to avoid ambiguity, but it often leads to syntactic discontinuities. How do the Romanian translators of European Union legal texts treat such discontinuities? The paper identifies some translation techniques for dealing with this phenomenon as they are reflected by the official Romanian variants of a set of European Union documents originally written in English.

The problematic of translation of legal texts

This article explores the translation of legal texts, as it is usually fraught with a variety of challenges of linguistic and extralinguistic nature. The translator must have a strong command of linguistics, translation skills and profound knowledge of national and international criminal-procedural of civil-procedural law.  Focus is made on the one hand on determination of typology of general linguistic and translation problems pertaining to legal documents, and on the other – on identification of peculiarities of these problems depending on qualification of a specialist doing legal translation. The main characteristics of legal texts are viewed from the perspective of applied comparative legal science. Interdisciplinary approach towards research in the area of legal translation is a logical solution for the analysis of emerging problems. The article demonstrates some mistakes in translation of legal terms on the example of English, Polish, and Italian languages. The author comes to the conclusion that for a translator without the background of legal practice it is difficult to do the translation of legal texts; as well as submits a proposal on comprising methodological recommendations.

BREAKING THE LANGUAGE BARRIER IN LEGAL EDUCATION: A METHOD FOR AFRICANISING LEGAL EDUCATION

Section 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, 1996 recognises eleven official languages of the Republic and further requires the State to take practical steps to advance the use of African languages. The Statistics South Africa 2017/18 report shows that most South Africans’ first language are African languages. Despite this reality and the constitutional imperatives, the South African Bachelor of Laws (LLB) curriculum does not prescribe any African language as a compulsory course, and very few sources of law are in an African language. Some law schools do offer some African languages as an elective. However, it is submitted that this is not sufficient. Experience has shown that the inability to articulate oneself in English can be a barrier to completing the LLB degree in regulation-time and admission to legal practice. Furthermore, it is submitted that the Chief Justice 2017 Directive, in which Chief Justice Mogoeng declared English as the only language of record in South African courts, does not address the language problems experienced by court staff. Instead it simply perpetuates the Eurocentric legal system. This is because it counters the advancement and use of African languages envisaged by the Constitution. This article investigates how the failure to advance multilingualism in the current LLB curriculum can disadvantage law students going to practice. It is proposed that law schools begin to address this issue by introducing two innovations. First, it is suggested that law schools make at least one African language a compulsory course. For English first language speakers in particular, this arrangement will strengthen their understanding of the sociological context in which the law operates. Second, it is proposed that each law school should choose an African language that is predominantly spoken in their geographical area and partner with schools of languages to translate sources of law. For African first language speakers in particular, this will assist them in understanding legal concepts better. Translations of legal texts may also allow for law schools to teach the law in the local African language.

SYNTACTIC AND LEXICAL ASPECTS OF STUDENTS’ LEGAL TRANSLATIONS AT THE POSTGRADUATE LEVEL

Teaching translation of legal texts into English at the postgraduate level at the Faculty of Philology (formerly at the Institute of Foreign Languages), University of Montenegro, started in 2004. At this study programme, students face for the first time challenges of translating legal texts. Although they occasionally translate some legal texts at the undergraduate level, this is the first time that they study legal translation in a systematic way. This certainly produces some challenges, that may be mainly observed on two levels: (1) syntactic level, where some students produce English sentences that are literal translations of Montenegrin sentences; bearing in mind syntactic differences in the languages, this sometimes leads to a loss of meaning or distorted meaning in translations; and (2) lexical level, where there are differences in the English and Montenegrin legal systems, which certainly requires caution in translation; it is possible to identify some inconsistencies in using legal terminology because some Montenegrin concepts cannot be always simply transferred into English without looking more deeply into the legal systems. The paper discusses the notions of formal fidelity vs. fidelity to the “uniform intent” of the text (Šarčević, 1997) or what Hatim and Munday (2004) refer to as literal and free translation. These notions are crucial for my discussion of causes of errors in my students’ translations.

Competencia textual y comunicativa en la traducción jurídica del inglés al checo: un estudio de caso

The study addresses communicative and textual competence using empirical data obtained in a translation experiment conducted with professional translators and advanced translation students. Specifically, it explores stylistic and grammatical errors in translations of legal texts from English into Czech, which account for more than a half of all errors identified in the analysed sample. The results show that terminology and legal phraseology are a frequent source of difficulty not only in terms of meaning, but also from the grammatical and stylistic point of view. Another large group of erroneous solutions was identified at the syntactic level, including defects of overall textual coherence. Professional translators achieved better results than translation trainees both in terms of the overall quality and average number of errors; however, as regards the numbers of stylistic and linguistic errors, the performance of both groups was more balanced than in other categories.

Habeas corpus: reflexões teóricas e estratégias para a tradução (espanhol ”“ português) do termo jurídico

Este artigo apresenta reflexões sobre estratégias para a tradução de textos relacionados ao domínio discursivo jurídico. São aqui discutidos alguns usos do termo habeas corpus no par linguístico espanhol ”“ português que, embora eventualmente designados de forma idêntica, têm alcance, efeitos e ritos distintos nos sistemas jurídicos em contato. Considerando habeas corpus um item-cultural-específico, este trabalho aborda a história e o desenvolvimento dessa garantia no Brasil e em alguns países de língua espanhola com o objetivo de refletir sobre as diferenças entre os sistemas jurídicos eventualmente em contato por meio da tradução, chamando atenção para o fato de que dicionários nem sempre preveem a diversidade dos habeas corpus insculpidos no Direito das nações de língua hispânica. A partir disso, são sugeridas estratégias para o tratamento deste termo na tradução do texto jurídico, ressaltando-se a importância da consulta a fontes acuradas e dicionários especializados ””e, preferencialmente, provenientes do país de cuja tradição jurídica se estiver traduzindo ”” de modo a evitar que a tradução desses termos ignore as características que eles apresentam enquanto itens-culturais-específicos. Para tanto, propõe-se uma revisão teórica sobre o habeas corpus como instrumento garantidor de liberdades (tanto de liberdade de locomoção como de liberdades individuais mais amplas), seguida de uma discussão sobre como a tradução de textos jurídicos está ligada aos diferentes ambientes culturais em que esses textos estão colocados. Tomando por base o referencial teórico de Javier Franco Aixelá sobre itens-culturais-específicos, são propostas seis possíveis estratégias para a manipulação do habeas corpus (ou do instrumento que o faça as vezes sob a ótica do Direito Comparado) em tradução do espanhol para o português. Em seguida, analisam-se especificamente as estratégias possíveis para a tradução de termos e são apresentados exemplos de explicação intratextual e de universalização para este termo provenientes do texto jornalístico sobre o Direito. Com essa discussão, este artigo visa a levantar um debate em uma área relativamente pouco trabalhada dentro dos Estudos da Tradução e contribuir para o desenvolvimento do campo com uma pesquisa sobre línguas próximas, como o português e o espanhol.

Problems and Strategies to Maneuver Issues in Translation in the Subject of Law: An Analytical Study

This article is an endeavor to spotlight the problems and difficulties in the process of translation of a text that is purely relevant to the field of law. Furthermore, this study also discusses strategies to counter hindrances in the process of translation of legal text and the viability of product or result (translated text from original text) produced after translation. For the purpose of this study, some translations have been selected to analyses the flaws in translations of statutory laws and Shar??ah sources. This research paper finds that for an effective an accurate translation, the translation practitioner needs expertise in source and target languages. Moreover, proficiency in the understanding of law filed is also required. Translation of meaning of the text is appreciated in the field of translation studies. At the end of this research paper, besides pointing out the translation problems in the field of law, some recommendations have been made to develop a viable strategy to handle translation problems. The researchers believe that the recommendations made as a result of this research paper, if implemented, could provide considerable strategies to resolve translation problems in the field of law.

PROBLEMS OF PERSIAN-RUSSIAN LEGAL TRANSLATION ON THE EXAMPLE OF MARRIAGE CONTRACT

Te ever-expanding international contacts reveal a great importance of studying and translating various kinds of documents and legal texts. Tis rather complicated process involves a number of problems that a translator needs to overcome. Te problems of legal texts translation are aggravated by the discrepancies between the legal systems of societies with social, cultural, ethnic, religious and other differences underlying them that fnd their reflection in different legal terminology systems. Tis article deals with the problems of Persian-Russian translation of legal texts with cultural and religious specifcs. Recently, Iranian-Russian relations have been developing really actively. In this regard, the translation of legal texts, which include documents of identity, marriage and family relations regulations, inheritance, etc., is of particular relevance. Te Persian-Russian translation of these documents raises many questions and problems due to its cultural and religious nature. Problems are exacerbated by the lack of specialized dictionaries, databases and electronic resources. Tis article presents some ways of solving these problems, as well as practical recommendations on the example of the translation of marriage contracts.

Linguistic Transformations in Translating Legal Terminology from Russian into English and German

Цель работы - проведение анализа особенностей и проблем юридического перевода. Необходимо отметить, что перевод юридического текста должен отвечать требованиям точности, сжатости, ясности, однозначности терминологии, сохранения правовой надежности и прозрачности перевода, а также соотноситься с целевой аудиторией текста перевода. Таким образом, в условиях расширения международных связей и обмена информацией переводоведение на сегодняшний день считается самостоятельной научной дисциплиной со своей теоретической базой, концептуальным аппаратом и терминологией. При переводе юридической терминологии с русского на английский и немецкий языки применение различных переводческих трансформаций обусловлено двумя основными факторами - различиями в структурах языков и различиями в юридических нормах. Отмечается, что юридические тексты характеризуются наличием жесткой структуры, институциональности, перформативного характера, интертекстуальности, а также ряда других черт, которые определяют специфику перевода юридических текстов. Таким образом, следует сделать вывод, что помимо необходимости выбора между различными вариантами одного и того же термина, его синонимами переводчику приходится производить лексико-семантические замены при отсутствии прямых аналогов в правовых системах стран или давать описательный перевод.

Rethinking Global-Regulation: world’s law meets artificial intelligence

ABSTRACTThis article takes a critical look at Machine Translation of legal text, especially global legislation, through the discussion of Global-Regulation, a state of the art online search engine of the world’s legislation in English. Part 2 explains the rationale for an online platform such as Global-Regulation. Part 3 provides a brief account of the history of the development of machine translation, and it describes some of the limits of the use of statistical machine translation for translating legal texts. Part 4 describes Neural Machine Translation (NMT), which is a new generation of machine translation systems. Finally, Parts 5 and 6 outline the ‘big sky’ thoughts on future directions for Global-Regulation.

Translators’ Perspectives: The Construction of the Peruvian Indigenous Languages Act in Indigenous Languages

An urgent need is emerging in contemporary Latin America for the translation of legal texts from the languages of former European colonial powers into the many indigenous languages spoken across the region. This article addresses the issue in relation to the rise of legislation that requires States to uphold the principle of linguistic human rights. It takes as a case study the translation of the Peruvian Indigenous Languages Act (2011) from Spanish into five Amerindian languages, viewed as a postcolonial practice situated at the communicative interface between the State and the country’s indigenous populations. Our specific interest is the strategic behavior of the indigenous translators, as described by themselves, when communicating to their peoples the State norms contained in the Indigenous Languages Act. In order to analyze this behavior, we depart from text-analytical models and favor an approach based on the translators’ perceptions of their role and their rationales for the translation solutions adopted. The analysis combines theoretical strands from translation studies, legal studies and postcolonial studies so as to throw light on the translation of legal discourse from Spanish into the indigenous languages of Peru, as conducted, crucially, by bilingual translators situated on the cultural “inside.”