Making sense in legal translation
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Marta Chromá (b. 1958) is a senior lecturer and researcher at Charles University in Prague 〈chroma@prf.cuni.cz〉. Her research interests include legal linguistics, legal translation, and legal lexicography. Her publications include “Semantic and legal interpretation: Two approaches to legal translation” (2008); “Synonymy and polysemy in legal terminology and their applications to bilingual and bijural translation” (2011);New introduction to legal English (2nd edn., 2011); and “A dictionary for legal translation” (2012).
Abstract
Translation theories have shifted in focus over the last sixty years: purely linguistic means and methods have been enhanced by sociolinguistic views, pragmatic application, and semiotic approaches. Legal translation is a process in which one dual semiotic system (source law and language) is transmitted into the other dual semiotic system (target law and language). The process of transmission is complex: interpretation by a translator of the source text within the source legal system forms its crucial stage as the translator is able to convey to another language only such information that he or she finds in the source legal text. Although source law and source culture should be adapted in the process of legal translation to target law and target culture respectively in order to be comprehensible for the target language recipients, the culturally rooted message contained in the source legal text, when transposed to the target language text, should reflect to a certain extent its original cultural rootedness. Whether such a requirement can be met depends upon the translator's proficiency and competence in both the source dual semiotic system and the target dual semiotic system.
About the author
Marta Chromá (b. 1958) is a senior lecturer and researcher at Charles University in Prague 〈chroma@prf.cuni.cz〉. Her research interests include legal linguistics, legal translation, and legal lexicography. Her publications include “Semantic and legal interpretation: Two approaches to legal translation” (2008); “Synonymy and polysemy in legal terminology and their applications to bilingual and bijural translation” (2011); New introduction to legal English (2nd edn., 2011); and “A dictionary for legal translation” (2012).
©2014 by Walter de Gruyter Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Communication and culture mediation techniques in jurilinguistics
- Legal translation: A sociosemiotic approach
- Adopting and adapting an international model law in a multilingual and multicultural context
- Sur la jurilinguistique, la traduction, et l’interprétation
- Théorie et pratique de la traduction juridique ou sur les lieux d'une rencontre
- Teaching and learning legal translation
- Making sense in legal translation
- L'évolution conceptuelle dans le langage juridique international ou la traduction d'une nouvelle littéralité
- Chinese translations of legal terms in early modern period: An empirical study of the books compiled/translated by missionaries around the mid-nineteenth century
- A study on the process of legal translation
- Legal translation -- an impossible task?
- The object of fidelity in translating multilingual legislation
- Les phraséologismes verbaux en droit: Une étude de cas à partir du terme responsabilité civile
- A sociosemiotic interpretation of police interrogations
- How disputes are reconciled in a Chinese courtroom setting: From an appraisal perspective
- Courtroom setups in China's criminal trials
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Communication and culture mediation techniques in jurilinguistics
- Legal translation: A sociosemiotic approach
- Adopting and adapting an international model law in a multilingual and multicultural context
- Sur la jurilinguistique, la traduction, et l’interprétation
- Théorie et pratique de la traduction juridique ou sur les lieux d'une rencontre
- Teaching and learning legal translation
- Making sense in legal translation
- L'évolution conceptuelle dans le langage juridique international ou la traduction d'une nouvelle littéralité
- Chinese translations of legal terms in early modern period: An empirical study of the books compiled/translated by missionaries around the mid-nineteenth century
- A study on the process of legal translation
- Legal translation -- an impossible task?
- The object of fidelity in translating multilingual legislation
- Les phraséologismes verbaux en droit: Une étude de cas à partir du terme responsabilité civile
- A sociosemiotic interpretation of police interrogations
- How disputes are reconciled in a Chinese courtroom setting: From an appraisal perspective
- Courtroom setups in China's criminal trials
