The Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation

by Le Cheng, King Kui Sin

Overview

This volume investigates advances in the field of legal translation both from a theoretical and practical perspective, with professional and academic insights from leading experts in the field. Part I of the collection focuses on the exploration of legal translatability from a theoretical angle. Covering fundamental issues such as equivalence in legal translation, approaches to legal translation and the interaction between judicial interpretation and legal translation, the authors offer contributions from philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives. Part II focuses on the analysis of legal translation from a practical perspective among different jurisdictions such as China, the EU and Japan, offering multiple and pluralistic viewpoints.

This book presents a collection of studies in legal translation which not only provide the latest international research findings among academics and practitioners, but also furnish us with a new approach to, and new insights into, the phenomena and nature of legal translation and legal transfer.

The collection provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, academics and students specialising in law and legal translation, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and semiotics.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138700789
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/31/2017
Series:	Law, Language and Communication
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	6.88(w) x 9.69(h) x (d)

About the Author

Anne Wagner, is an Associate Professor in Applied Linguistics, Université Lille - Nord de France, France, and Research Professor, China University of Political Science and Law (Beijing, China). Since 2005 she has been President of the International Roundtables for the Semiotics of Law (IRSL). She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law (Springer) and the Series Editor of Law, Language and Communication (Ashgate). She is President of the International Roundtable for the Semiotics of Law and Vice President of the Multicultural Association of Law and Language. She has extensively published research papers in the area of legal translation, law and semiotics, legal discourse analyses. King-kui Sin is currently Adjunct Professor and Special Consultant at the School of Translation, Hang Seng Management College, Hong Kong. From 1987 to 2013 he taught and designed undergraduate and postgraduate courses in interpretation, translation, language and law at City University of Hong Kong. Before that he had been a court interpreter and certified translator in the Judiciary of Hong Kong and a training officer for translators and interpreters at a French petroleum corporation based in China. From 1990 to 1997 he served on the Bilingual Laws Advisory Committee, a statutory body responsible for advising the Hong Kong Government on the translation of the law into Chinese. He was later awarded MBE by the British Government for his contribution. Among his professional engagements, he is President of the Multicultural Association of Law and Language, which has organized eight international conferences since 2011. Le Cheng is currently Professor and Director of the Center for Legal Discourse and Translation, Zhejiang University. He holds a concurrent professorship at China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL). He is Chief Editor of the International Journal of Law, Language & Discourse, co-editor of the Translated Series on Law and Language (CUPL Press), Secretary General and Vice President of the Multicultural Association of Law and Language, Deputy Director of the Research Centre for Legal Translation, CUPL, and Councillor of the China Behaviour Law Association. His interests and publications are in the areas of law, legal translation, semiotics, language and law, and discourse analysis.

Table of Contents

Introduction Legal Translatability Process as the Third Space – Insights into Theory and Practice; I: Legal Translation in Theory; 1: Translation vs. Decoding Strategies in Law and Economics Scholarship 1; 2: Cultural Transfer and Conceptualization in Legal Discourse; 3: Lost in Translation? Linguistic Diversity and the Elusive Quest for Plain Meaning in the Law; 4: Translation Equivalence as Legal Fiction 1; 5: Trying to See the Wood Despite the Trees: A Plain Approach to Legal Translation; 6: Minimal Unit of Legal Translation vs. Minimal Unit of Thought; 7: Parameters for Problem-Solving in Legal Translation: Implications for Legal Lexicography and Institutional Terminology Management; 8: Structuring a Legal Translation Course: A Framework for Decision-Making in Legal Translator Training; II: Legal Translation in Practice; 9: EU Legislative Texts and Translation; 10: Phraseology in Legal Translation: A Corpus-Based Analysis of Textual Mapping in EU Law; 11: Translating International Arbitration Norms into the Italian Language and Culture; 12: Translating Domestic Legislation: A Comparative Analysis of English Versions of Brazilian Law on Arbitration; 13: Translation of Japanese Laws and Regulations; 14: Important Translation Strategies Used in Legal Translation: Examples of Hooper's Translation of the Ottoman Majalla into English; 15: On the Translation of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC; 16: The New Czech Civil Code – Lessons from Legal Translation – A Case-Study Analysis; 17: Multilevel Translation Analysis of a Key Legal Concept: Persona Juris and Legal Pluralism; II: Afterword: The Trials and Tribulations of Legal Translation

Editorial Reviews

'This is truly a handbook, covering both theoretical issues concerning translation and the translation of legal documents in particular, and practical matters that emerge from specific tasks of translating legal discourse to and from a number of languages - from the European community, Asia and South America. A must for practitioners and others interested in the field.' Dennis Kurzon, University of Haifa, Israel ’This Handbook provides legal and linguistic scholars as well as legal translators with a deeper understanding of the complexity of legal translation processes, while investigating issues in legal translatability and equivalence. This book will constitute an inestimable contribution for practitioners and theoreticians of legal translation who will benefit from the great expertise of all the authors in order to advance their art and science and possibly establish a more balanced dialogue between legal and linguistic cultures.’ Jean-Claude Gémar, Université de Montréal, Canada ’Covering a broad spectrum of topics, the Handbook of Legal Translation provides innovative insights into the theory and practice of legal translation at national, supranational and international levels. Written by a global authorship, the contributions are recommended reading for academics, students and practitioners interested in the dynamics of legal translation.’ Susan Šarčevi, author of New Approach to Legal Translation ’Writing with intensity and persuasiveness, scholars contributing to this thought-provoking Handbook have opened new doors into our thinking about legal translatability by expanding translation research into the global dimensions of law and legal pluralism. A rich set of analytically and methodologically important tools makes this Handbook, even more productively, a re-conceptualization of legal translation for the 21st century.’ Girolamo Tessuto, Seconda Universitş degli Studi di Napoli, Italy ’In today’s world of multilingual legal

From the Publisher