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3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation

  • Eva N.S. Ng
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The Critical Link 5
Ein Kapitel aus dem Buch The Critical Link 5

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.

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
  5. Part I. A shared responsibility
  6. 2. Forensic interpreting 13
  7. 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
  8. 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
  9. 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
  10. Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
  11. 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
  12. 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
  13. 8. Interpreting for the record 119
  14. 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
  15. 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
  16. Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
  17. 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
  18. 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
  19. 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
  20. 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
  21. 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
  22. Contributors 251
  23. Index 253
https://doi.org/10.1075/btl.87.04ng

Kapitel in diesem Buch

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. 1. Introduction. Quality in interpreting 1
  5. Part I. A shared responsibility
  6. 2. Forensic interpreting 13
  7. 3. The tension between adequacy and acceptability in legal interpreting and translation 37
  8. 4. A discourse of danger and loss 55
  9. 5. Is healthcare interpreter policy left in the seventies? 71
  10. Part II. Investigations and innovations in quality interpreting
  11. 6. Interpreter ethics versus customary law 85
  12. 7. A shared responsibility in the administration of justice 99
  13. 8. Interpreting for the record 119
  14. 9. Court interpreting in Basque 135
  15. 10. Community interpreting in Spain 149
  16. Part III. Pedagogy, ethics and responsibility in interpreting
  17. 11. Toward more reliable assessment of interpreting performance 171
  18. 12. Quality in healthcare interpreter training 187
  19. 13. What can interpreters learn from discourse studies? 201
  20. 14. Achieving quality in health care interpreting 221
  21. 15. Research ethics, interpreters and biomedical research 235
  22. Contributors 251
  23. Index 253
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Heruntergeladen am 2.1.2026 von https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/btl.87.04ng/html?lang=de
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