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On the Translation of Legal Texts

Author: DuHaiYan
Tutor: JiYuHua
School: Xiamen University
Course: English Language and Literature
Keywords: legal English translation theories Company Law of the People’s Republic of China
CLC: H315.9
Type: Master's thesis
Year: 2008
Downloads: 485
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Abstract

The ever-increasing trend of economic globalization and China’s entry into the WTO quicken the pace of China’s exchange with the outside world. Against this background, exchange of laws is of great importance for the following reasons. One reason is that the implementation of China’s commitment to the WTO requires official English versions of all the relevant laws. Another reason is that during the process of constructing a society ruled by law, we not only need to learn from foreign countries for their valuable experience, but also need to introduce Chinese legal system to the outside world with a view to pursuing better communication with foreign countries and creating a better international environment for development. The third reason is that current English versions of Chinese laws need improving due to serious quality problems.In 1993, Company Law of the People’s Republic of China was published, which was a significant step towards constructing a perfect system of socialist market economy and perfecting the Chinese socialist legal system. It also can be called a milestone in the development of strategic corporation with foreign companies and investors. Over the past decade, the CLPRC underwent three amendments, and the current edition amended in 2005 is relatively suitable for Chinese economy in the 21st century.The importance of law and the existence of different languages determine that translation of legal texts is crucial. Legal English, as one kind of English for special purposes, displays distinct linguistic features, namely, stylistic features, lexical features and syntactic features. Although lots of studies have been conducted before, there has been an absence of profound and systematic theory, specifically for translation of legal texts. Those who have conducted explorative studies and published articles in this field generally focus their attention on specific translation techniques or how to arrange sentence structures.In this thesis, the writer intends to explore more methods of translation of legal texts. By making two official English versions of Company Law of the People’s Republic of China a corpus for comparative analysis, the writer is able to gain insights into the nature of problems with translation of legal texts.The present thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter 1 presents an overview of the present study with a brief introduction to "law" and "legal English". Therefore, readers can get an overall understanding about the whole thesis.Chapter 2 reviews related linguistic features of legal English. This part will develop in four sections which are introduction, stylistic features, lexical features and syntactic features for the purpose of providing a detailed picture of the characteristics of legal English.Chapter 3 presents a theoretical framework for the analysis of Chinese-English translations of laws and regulations. The writer first makes a brief introduction to general translation theories both in foreign countries and in China. Then the writer puts forward four criteria for assessing the quality of translation of legal texts.Chapter 4 is devoted to comparison of the two versions of Company Law of the People’s Republic of China (hereinafter referred to as the CLPRC). At the beginning of this chapter, the writer introduces the history of the CLPRC, and then she explains the necessity of English version of the CLPRC. Afterwards, the writer analyzes two versions of the CLPRC, and points out the merits and demerits of them. Then the writer puts forward some more principles of improving English translations of Chinese laws.The last part summarizes the major findings of the present study. Furthermore, practical and theoretical implications and limitations of the present study, and suggestions for further research are also put forward in this chapter.Translation of legal texts is a brand-new research subject in China’s translation field and it requires flexible application of various translation techniques. It is the writer’s sincere hope that the thesis can throw some light on translation of legal texts and a profound and systematic theory can come up soon.

On the Translation of Legal Texts

Abstract

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