The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
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Qinhua He
Abstract
The transplantation of law has always been linked with legal translation either in China or abroad. The latter is the premise of the former as the former is the outcome of the latter. Since the languages people speak differ from country to country, it is necessary for us to translate foreign laws into our own language in order to learn, absorb, judge, comment, and make the right choice. This thesis takes the example of Elements of International Law, which was translated and published in 1864, analyzing the achievements and shortcomings of the first integrated legal translation practice in modern China as well as its influence on legal translation, transplantation, and localization in modern China. Here, I put forward my own humble opinions, seeking advice from other professionals.
Acknowledgements
The author and the translator thank Shuqing Min, Luxi Jin, and Qinchen Ding for their translation assistance.
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Article Note
This is a translated version of the author’s article published in the Journal of Comparative Law (No. 2, 2014). This article is translated by Professor Wensheng Qu.
© 2017 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
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Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- La sémiotique juridique verbale et nonverbale comme stratégie de communication du droit: Signs, symbols, and meanings in law
- “Verbal and nonverbal” in semiotics
- The frowning balance: Semiotic insinuations on the visual rhetoric of justice
- Semiotics of visual evidence in law
- Observing laws through “understanding eyes”
- Interpreting law in socio-pragmatic space
- Conceptualizing cultural discrepancies in legal translation: A case-based study
- The first integrated practice of legal translation in modern China: A study of the Chinese translation of Elements of International Law, 1864
- Translations of early Sino-British treaties and the masked western legal concepts
- “Susanna and the Elders”: On the visual semiotic of shame
- Angels, warriors, and beacons: Totemic law, territorial coding, and monumental sculpture in post-industrial landscapes
- Expiration dates: Performative illusions of law and regulation
- From immunity to immunity. From immunity to silence: The case of Gilad Sharon
- Under western eyes: Articulation between indigenous justice and the national judicial system
- Police interpreting: The facts sheet
- The influence of legal tradition on Italian arbitration discourse
- Weighing and balancing of principles in cases with rule paradoxes
- “You have to teach the judge what to do”: Semiotic gaps between unrepresented litigants and the common law
- The semiotic interpretation of legal subjects in China’s new criminal procedure law
- Mission impossible? Judges’ playing of dual roles as adjudicator and mediator in Chinese court conciliation
- “Is it the case that … ?”: Building toward findings of fact in Japanese criminal trials
- Institutional interaction in traffic law enforcement in China: Resistance and obedience
- Duppying yoots in a dog eat dog world, kmt: Determining the senses of slang terms for the Courts
- Les structures sémantiques profondes du code pénal chinois
