3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation
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Eva N.S. Ng
Abstract
For over a century, English was the only language in which law was practiced in Hong Kong, yet the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 has made legal bilingualism inevitable. In translating existing laws into Chinese, the Law Drafting Division emphasises the need to establish a semantic mapping between the Chinese statutes and their English counterparts, and to strive for both adequacy and acceptability when selecting a Chinese term or expression to represent a common-law concept. This paper examines how legal translators and interpreters resolve the tension between adequacy and acceptability, and concludes that the effort to achieve adequacy at the expense of acceptability may not always pay off.
Abstract
For over a century, English was the only language in which law was practiced in Hong Kong, yet the handover of Hong Kong to China in 1997 has made legal bilingualism inevitable. In translating existing laws into Chinese, the Law Drafting Division emphasises the need to establish a semantic mapping between the Chinese statutes and their English counterparts, and to strive for both adequacy and acceptability when selecting a Chinese term or expression to represent a common-law concept. This paper examines how legal translators and interpreters resolve the tension between adequacy and acceptability, and concludes that the effort to achieve adequacy at the expense of acceptability may not always pay off.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
-
Part I. A shared responsibility
- 2. Forensic interpreting 13
- 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
- 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
- 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
-
Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
- 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
- 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
- 8. Interpreting for the record 119
- 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
- 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
-
Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
- 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
- 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
- 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
- 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
- 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
- Contributors 251
- Index 253
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
-
Part I. A shared responsibility
- 2. Forensic interpreting 13
- 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
- 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
- 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
-
Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
- 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
- 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
- 8. Interpreting for the record 119
- 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
- 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
-
Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
- 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
- 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
- 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
- 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
- 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
- Contributors 251
- Index 253
