Dificultati Tipice Si Solutii în Traducerea Textelor Juridice

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Dificultati Tipice Si Solutii în Traducerea Textelor Juridice

Byadmin ianuarie 1, 2024

PROIECT DE LICENȚĂ

Dificultăți tipice și soluții în traducerea textelor juridice

(studiu de caz)

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

I. GENERAL FEATURES OF LEGAL TRANSLATION

I.1. Legal translator: required skills and rules to follow

I.2. Key success factors for reliable legal translations

II. TYPICAL DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS IN TRANSLATING LEGAL TEXTS

II.1. Grammar problems in translation

II.2. Legal collocations

II.3. False friends in legal texts

II.4. Cases of untranslatability

CONCLUSION

BIBLIOGRAPHY

ANNEX 1. Grammatical collocations in legal texts

ANNEX 2. Lexical collocations in legal texts

ANNEX 3. Legal collocations. Lexicometric diagrams.

ANNEX 4. False friends in legal translation

ANNEX 5. Glossary of legal terms

ANNEX 6. Prenuptial Agreement / Contract Prenupțial

INTRODUCTION

The topic of my licence project is “Typical Difficulties and Solutions in Translating Legal Texts”, which I have found a rather interesting and demanding topic, both from theoretical and practical viewpoints.

I have performed my practice in translation from November 10, 2014 until December 12, 2014 at the Honorary Consulate of the Republic of Korea in Moldova, as a translator of the English, Korean and Romanian languages. The Consulate of the Republic of Korea in Moldova is the office of the Honorary Consul and is subordinated to the Embassy of the Republic of Korea in Ukraine. The main tasks of the Honorary Consulate include the enhancement of the bilateral relations in trade, economy, culture and science between the Republic of Korea and the Republic of Moldova. Even though the practice period was a short one, I tried my best to enhance my knowledge of English and Korean languages and broaden my translation skills in both languages.

My main task consisted in performing written translations from English into Romanian and from Korean into English, putting into practice all my theoretical knowledge achieved through study, training, work and life experience, while expanding my translation skills. Thanks to the preliminary competences acquired at ULIM during such academic courses as Theory and Practice of Translation, I was able to perform qualified and eligible translation. I would especially like to single out the academic course Consecutive and Simultaneous Translation. During that course I learnt many terms and useful phrases I came across while performing this practice.

Also, thanks to the fact that my attendance at practice was 100%, I could sense the genuine feeling of contentment and enjoyment of the job. It was as if I had been a real employee. That gave me the strength and motivation to try even harder.

The first days literally required determination and effort. The documents I was given for translation contained a lot of terms and professionalisms from the field of law. Hopefully, the nice staff, that later on I became friends with, were there to teach me, answer my questions and support me when I was desperate searching for the right words.

One of the things I realized during this practice is that to produce good translations it is not enough to have a superficial acquaintance with another language. One must have a thorough knowledge of both languages (the Source Language (SL) and the Target Language (TL)) and the ability to deal with semantic differences. It is not enough just to know the translation of the word. One has to know the different aspects, synonyms, the many uses of the word and contextual nuances. Another aspect I would like to cover is the knowledge I gained during this practice through the numerous difficulties I had to deal with.

The goal of my licence project is to determine the typical difficulties and the solutions to them in translating legal texts.

The objectives of this licence project are the following:

To learn legal terminology;

To seize and sense the concept of equivalence in translation;

To learn how to translate “untranslatable” words and phrases;

To master skills in the translation of different types of legal documents, from summons, purchase and sale agreements, application for a temporary resident visa to prenuptial agreements and divorce petitions and so on;

To acquire practical skills of accurate and qualitative translation of legal texts;

To find typical difficulties in translating legal texts;

To come up with suitable solutions for the difficulties that can occur in the process of translation.

The structure of this licence project consists of an Introduction, two Sections, Conclusion, Bibliography and Annexes.

The first Section is entitled “General Features of Legal Translation”, where I am going to tackle the essence of the profession of translator in general, its originality and necessity, the characteristics that any good translator should have, as well as the essence of the profession of legal translator in particular, the requirements and tips for becoming a good translator in the field of law, and the success factors for reliable legal translations.

The second Section is entitled “Typical Difficulties and Solutions in Translating Legal Texts”. Here are described some of the difficulties that occurred when I was dealing with the legal texts given to me for translation. This Section enlarges upon the typical grammar difficulties, legal collocations, false friends one can encounter when translating legal documents, as well as cases of untranslatability, by providing an equivalent in Romanian and Korean languages for each English phrase under consideration.

In Conclusion my intention is to sum up the achieved results and to elaborate on the realization of the objectives of this licence project.

The Bibliography part includes the list of books, dictionaries and internet resources I have used in support of the findings and conclusions in relation to this licence project.

The Annexes contain the following materials: a list of terms translated in both Romanian and Korean; an account of grammatical and lexical legal collocations; a list of a number of false friends that often occur in legal documents; a few texts that have served as a solid ground for my research and practical work (see Annexes 6-10); and some information I have found relevant and useful for the purpose of this licence project.

I. GENERAL FEATURES OF LEGAL TRANSLATION

I.1. Legal translator: required skills and rules to follow

Every translation activity involves one or more distinct goals and whatever they are, the main goal of translation is to serve as an intercultural communication vehicle among peoples. The conclusion made by Anthony Burgess is incontrovertible in this regard: “Translation is not a matter of words only; it is a matter of making intelligible a whole culture” [29, online].

Over the last few decades, due to globalization, increasing international trade, and the boom in mass media and technology, the translation activity has greatly developed. On these grounds, the translator acts as a bridge between the two languages, providing transparency not only to the words of the text itself, but also to the feelings, cultural thoughts and approaches behind those words. This task is not easy, as it requires nothing less than accuracy. A single mistake can result in an offensive message that can eventually lead to misunderstandings between people, or worse, as in legal texts, it can lead to terrible damages.

Nevertheless, no matter how difficult the translating process is, the result – the TL text – must aim at the tenor of the message and accuracy in the conveyance of meaning of the Source Language (SL) text.

The quality of translation rests greatly upon the translator’s knowledge, dexterity, expertise, training, cultural background and even mood [16, online]. In 1995 Newmark distinguished the essential characteristics that any good translator should have:

a) reading comprehension ability in a foreign language;

b) knowledge of the subject;

c) sensitivity to language (both mother tongue and foreign language);

d) competence to write the TL dexterously, clearly, economically and resourcefully [22, online, p. 6].

Due to poor technique and mastery of TL, beginners sometimes try to use word-for-word translation, hoping in this way that they will get the gist or point of the Source Text (ST). Thus, they face difficulties when they encounter unknown words or some set of words and phrases different from their own culture. In her article on problems and solutions in translation, Prof. Constanza Gerding-Salas refers to Mercedes Tricás’s opinion in this regard. Tricás alludes to intuition, or common sense, i.e., making use of that sixth sense we all got in us, a mix of sensitivity, intelligence and intuition: “(…) the transfer process is a difficult and complex approach mechanism, one in which one must make use of all one’s intellectual capacity, intuition and skill” [16, online]. If handled cautiously, this mixture works very well.

I believe that human abilities and skills can be improved in one way or another. In this way, in order to polish this sixth sense, therefore, polish sensitivity, intelligence and intuition, we need some strategies, some preparation regarding the translation process. It implies strategies and approaches a translator does for long-term development. For example, by consulting newly released publications translators update their database, thus, enhancing their understanding of new developments in the field of law, trial procedures, and other related matters. So a translator/interpreter must prepare ahead and develop active memory for specific vocabulary (in my case, judicial language and terms).

The use of primary sources such as manuals and textbooks, and the use of non-linguistic ones, such as attending specific seminars, for example, will really come in handy for that purpose. Moreover, due to constant amendments to the existing law, official translators/interpreters are now required to get permanent education by attending conferences, refresher courses, seminars and workshops to increase further their abilities. These tips can be seen as practical application of knowledge, as comprehension strategies. For example, by attending regularly the interpreter’s conference of the Ministry of Justice, he/she gets accustomed to special terminology and simultaneously enhances his/her understanding of trial and criminal procedures in more detail. There are also various self-training print and recorded materials available, developed by experienced interpreter trainers. Some interpreters also join informal practice groups with other interpreters. Finally, mentoring programs provide novices with opportunities to interact with experienced practitioners.

The number one precondition for becoming a legal translator/interpretor is being fluent in the languages he/she translates from and into in order to ensure the conversation among the client, the attorneys, the judge and all other parties involved in the court room. The educational backgrounds of interpreters and translators vary broadly, but it is imperative that they be fluent in English and at least one other language. Many courts and other employers ask that legal translator/interpreters have bachelor’s degree. Also, choosing legal studies as a major is a huge benefit. This educational background would play an important role in learning and understanding the legal terminology used by the legal professionals. A judiciary interpreter must have wide general knowledge (equivalent to at least two years of college-level education); and an extensive vocabulary ranging from formal discourse to colloquialisms and slang.

A judiciary interpreter and/or translator must be knowledgeable about the structure of the court system and the terms of art related to criminal and civil justice settings.

An interpreter deals with people from many walks of life and must remain professional, unbiased, and neutral towards all. They cannot let their personal feelings about an issue get in the way of d would play an important role in learning and understanding the legal terminology used by the legal professionals. A judiciary interpreter must have wide general knowledge (equivalent to at least two years of college-level education); and an extensive vocabulary ranging from formal discourse to colloquialisms and slang.

A judiciary interpreter and/or translator must be knowledgeable about the structure of the court system and the terms of art related to criminal and civil justice settings.

An interpreter deals with people from many walks of life and must remain professional, unbiased, and neutral towards all. They cannot let their personal feelings about an issue get in the way of their translation.

A translator must possess excellent writing, research and analytic skills.

But what does a legal translator do? According to the National Association of Judiciary Interpreters and Translators (NAJIT) from the USA, “a legal translator prepares written translations of documents related to criminal and/or civil matters, such as medical or psychological evaluations; foreign judgments; forensic reports (drug analyses, DNA reports or medical reports); extradition documents; divorce decrees; statutes and contracts, or other relevant documents” [23, online]. The translation may be from the foreign language into one’s own language or from one’s own language into the foreign language. Tape transcription and translation of audio or video recordings are also needed for legal and quasi-legal proceedings. Transcription is an area of legal interpretation that demands additional training and proficiency.

Translating legal texts requires a rigorous standard of exactitude. They are considered to be amongst the most ambitious and problematic types of specialized texts to translate. Translated documents may be used as evidence or for other legal purposes. A true and accurate translation is always required. Legal texts involve plenty of translation difficulties and require specific methods in order to make a translated text understandable for the TL reader, whilst simultaneously mirroring the original character and unique aspects and features of the legal system of the SL country. When working with foreign language documents from different legal systems, a translator must find accurate equivalents in English for each legal term, while making sure not to mislead the reader to consider that some concepts are identical in the two legal systems, when in fact they may not be.

Sometimes these requirements force the translator to take great care of the vocabulary he/she uses, and of the knowledge on the legal system of both source and TL country he/she translates into.

When handling judicial source material it is extremely necessary to pay attention to the recurrent vocabulary. It is necessary to adapt and incorporate domain-specific vocabulary in an active way. The vocabulary list shall include lexical items or sentences translated from the TL into the SL (in my case, it shall include terms in three languages: Romanian, English and Korean).

What happens if a translator/interpreter makes a mistake? Legal translation is an area of language services, where even one minor mistake is worth a fortune. A wrong translation can change the fate of a person, possibly for the worse. Therefore, nowadays employers find it helpful to check the background and previous clients’ testimonies of a certified legal translator, before hiring him/her.

Nevertheless, translators/interpreters are human, and humans are fallible, so mistakes do every now and then happen. When a translator/interpreter becomes aware of an error, the translator/interpreter is ethically expected to correct the mistake instantly.

In court, the interpreter should address the judge, recognize the error, and request that the record reflect the correction.

Outside of court, an interpreter should address the legal authority in the specific setting in which the interpreter is working. For example, if an interpreter has been contracted by an attorney to interpret in an attorney-client interview or witness interview, the interpreter should address the attorney to acknowledge an error. If an interpreter has been contracted by law enforcement, the interpreter should address the interviewing or interrogating officer. If an interpreter was contracted by a social services agency, the interpreter should address the social worker, and so forth [23, online].

Ideally, interpreters should work in teams of two for trials and longer proceedings. This helps avoid interpreter’s fatigue, and provides mutual assistance when omissions or other errors occur. The US federal statute, as well as some state court statutes or court rules contain provisions on the use of team interpreting. NAJIT strongly recommends this standard [ibidem, online].

According to Law no. 264 on the Authorisation and Payment of Interpreters and Translators Hired by the Magistrates Supreme Council, the Ministry of Justice, the Prosecutors Bodies, Criminal Prosecution Bodies, Courts, Lawyers and by the Judicial Executors published on March 20, 2009 and effective as of September 20, 2009, the procedure related to the interpreters’ / translators’ authorisation and the requirements for issuing, withdrawing, adjourning and suspending the interpreters’ and translators’ authorisation falls within the competence of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Moldova [20, online].

I.2. Key success factors for reliable legal translations

To begin with, I would like to bring forward the statement made by Antoinette Dop and quoted in Translation Strategies for Legal Translators: “The law system of the source text governs the translation rather than the law system of the target language” [30, online, p. 3].

Typically, a translation is a product whose quality is not known to the client until it causes a problem. And when a problem occurs, it is usually too late to revise the translated document. In other words, one of the paramount problems is that clients ignorantly use legal translations that differ in meaning and effect from the ST.

Legal translations and the deadline pressure. When the deadline for trial, hearing or deposition is looming, the translator needs to quickly and reliably translate volumes of information. Legal translations usually necessitate more time than regular translations due to their nature and the required verification of meaningful legal nuances. This normally goes counter the fact that the translation of sensitive legal documents is unquestionably time-consuming since it must not only consider linguistic subtleties but also the legal system and peculiar context of each involved party (country) in order to service its purpose: render and convey the exact legal meaning and consequences as in the original.

How to translate the untranslatable? When encountering difficulties, such as linguistic or cultural untranslatability, application of various mechanisms (compensation, loans, explanatory notes, adaptation, equivalence, paraphrasing, analogies, etc.) can come in handy. Regarding the use of a certain procedure or strategy, the translator must choose the most suitable one for the transfer of the ideas and the meaning of the text under consideration. Only by adopting the appropriate technique and using it in a proper way, the translator can take care of the difficulties. The most adequate practice to deal with the problems of untranslatability is “contextualization”, i.e. the faculty to find the closest in meaning interpretation of the “non-existing” element within its context [12, online].

Legalese and regional variations. The meaning of ‘legal verbiage’ can differ considerably from one country to another. Even the generally accepted use of legal language can also differ notably at the regional level, particularly in countries such as the United-States with federal, state and local jurisdictions. The differences can be found in the formality and structure of the legal systems, the vocabularies, and the legal expressions. They also demonstrate the different cultures, and political, economic, and social histories of each community. ‘Jurisprudencia’ does not bear the same legal meaning in Mexico as it does in Spain, just as ‘consideration’ is not the same in Connecticut as it is in England [26, online].

Translation of “false friends”. The concept of ‘false friends’ was born bearing exactly the idea that the English word seems to be “friendly” to the speaker. It is generally advantageous to conversational speakers to find out that the language they are speaking share so many common words, roots of words. However, these perceived similarities may also easily lead to confusion. For instance, a building or room containing collections of books, periodicals, and sometimes films and recorded music for use or borrowing by the public or the members of an institution is referred to as ‘library’ in English. This simple word frequently creates major complications and misunderstandings when dealing with Romanian translations. Because of the strong similarity, one tends to render it in Romanian as ‘librărie’ when in fact, it means ‘bibliotecă’.

The advantage of using language dictionaries and even at times the advantage of using legal dictionaries is not enough to provide an accurate legal translation and no translation tool can take the place of specific legal training in the target and source languages and countries [23, online].

Translation, punctuation, and grammar. Nowadays, punctuation in legal texts is considered an essential part of the text, equal in status to the words themselves. Therefore, as different languages implement different standards, undesired and highly problematic results can simply derive from not taking the subtleties of grammar and punctuation rules properly into account.

Translation and accuracy. The aim of each translation is to accurately reflect the meaning of the source document. A reliable translation must use correct industry-specific terminology, render all potential nuances and uncertainties of the ST and not cause ambiguities when the ST provides clarity. The accurate translation of legal documents, such as international contracts and agreements, foreign law, court documentation and government regulations, is in the power of the comprehensive knowledge of the legal terminology [19, online]. It must also ensure that all used legal terminology rigidly have the same legal effects as their source equivalents or use explanations in cases where it may not be possible to find perfect equivalents in the target language.

Translation and fluency. Fluency in both SL and TL is compulsory in order to decode the exact meaning of a sentence and to get the exact corresponding phrase that conveys the same meaning in the TL. However, even advanced knowledge of a certain language does not guarantee successful translations. It is the implications and subtleties of a language and the thorough knowledge of the subject matter being translated or interpreted that makes the difference.

In light of the above, the conclusion is that it is usually necessary that the translator not only grasps the two languages (preferably as a bilingual speaker) but that the translator also has hands-on work experience in the TL realm in order to know exactly in which ways and with which implicit meaning the technical terms are used. Moreover, the reading comprehension skills, as well as the knowledge of specialized subjects developed from specialized exercises, education and a cultural background, the right awareness of the crucial characteristics of the cross-cultural and interlingual communication, are considered the mandatory competencies that can guarantee high quality in translation.

II. TYPICAL DIFFICULTIES AND SOLUTIONS IN TRANSLATING LEGAL TEXTS

II.1. Grammar problems in translation

Translating legal texts is challenging for a number of reasons. In translating legal documents, the translator should understand the characteristics of legal texts, analyse both the content and the legal style of the texts, be able to apply the legal style in the TT. In what follows, I would like to focus on the situations that required great effort and patience from my part.

One of the special markers of the legal language, which particularly has been puzzling me, is the modal verb ‘shall’. The special use of ‘shall’ in legal texts, the purpose of which is to express the imperative tone of the legal text style. It is not used to denote future tense but rather to impose rights and obligations.

ST: Mărfurile (bunurile) care au defecte de producere si sunt remediate de către cumpărători în limitele termenilor de garanție, urmează a fi restituite Furnizorului, costul cărora ultimul le achită integral sau prin acord cu Cumpărătorul urmează să schimbe marfa rebutată cu marfă de calitate în termen de 30 de zile.

TT1: The goods with manufacturing defects, remedied by buyers within the limits of the warranty period, shall be returned to Seller, the cost of which shall be refunded by the last in full or defective goods shall be changed with quality goods by agreement with Buyer, within 30 days.

TT2: 보증기간 범위에서 구매자가 교정된 제조상의 결함 상품은 판매자에게 반품해야 한다. 판매자가 대금 전액을 환불하거나 구매자 동의로 30일 이내에 결함 상품을 겨환해야 한다.

Usually, when given a text for translation, we tend to adapt the ST to the TT so that it does not sound awkward or, what is worse, change the meaning of the ST. However, at time, “relatively small shift in word order and combination can significantly alter the meaning of sentences” [4, p. 238]. When translating to/from English (it also refers to Romanian, Korean and any other language), we can hardly keep the word order unchanged.

Here is an example of a perfect word order from English into Romanian:

ST: (…) such as being a practicing lawyer for a certain number of years.

TT1: (…) cum ar fi să activeze în calitate de avocat timp de un anumit număr de ani.

TT2: (…) 과 같은 개업 변호사로 다녀간 일을 한다.

Below there is an example with changed word order from Romanian into English:

ST: Furnizorul acordă mărfii (bunurilor), conform legislației Republicii Moldova în vigoare, termene de garanție.

TT1: Seller shall grant a warranty period for the goods according to the legislation in force of the Republic of Moldova.

TT2: 판매자는 몰도바의현행 법규에 따라 보증 기간을 승인해야 한다.

Concerning the attributes, we must be very attentive not to change somehow their position. The meaning can change when we change the position of the attributes, and it remains the same when we do not. The attribute is the secondary part of sentence determining a noun. The attribute can be expressed by an adjective, noun or participle.

ST: The judicial branches of the federal and state governments are separate from the legislative and executive branches.

TT1: Ramurile judiciare ale autorităților publice federale și locale sunt separate de ramurile legislativă și executivă.

TT2: .연방정부와 주정부의 사법부는 입법부와 행정부에서 분리되어 있다.

As we can see above, in English the usual place of the attribute is before the word it modifies – ‘judicial branches’. However, in most Latin-based languages, including Romanian, the adjective comes after the noun – ‘ramurile judiciare’. Or in Korean, in one compound word – ‘사법부’.

However, the usual word order in Romanian sentences is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object). English is a SVO language as well, whereas Korean is a SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language. Therefore, as one can easily see from all of the examples above, none of the rules in English or Romanian languages are available in Korean language.

There are cases when the order of words is kept in both English and Romanian languages. That is the case of the construction ‘there is/there are’ that is translated in Romanian as ‘există’. Nonetheless, the Korean equivalent for the construction ‘there is/there are’ is a mere word, i.e. the verb ‘있다’

ST: There are 94 such district courts throughout the nation.

TT1: Există 94 de astfel de curți federale de district pe tot teritoriul țării.

TT2: 전국적으로 그러한 지방 법원들이 94 개 있다.

There are cases when in English the verb is dropped out, whereas in Romanian and Korean it is a must:

ST: The Justices enjoy their office for a lifetime, and they may be removed from the position only if convicted of a crime.

TT1: Judecătorii sunt numiți în funcție pe viață, și pot fi eliberați din funcție doar dacă sunt condamnați pentru săvârșirea unei infracțiuni.

TT2:판사들은 평생 직함을 가지고 오직 단죄된 경우에만 자리에서 쫓겨날 수 있다.

There were cases in my translation practice when I used replacements. As described in the examples below, the Romanian gerund ‘având’ is translated into English as ‘with the’. So no signs of any verb, though the English sentence thus created bears quite a legal character.

ST: Președintele Curții și judecătorul care îl înlocuiește se aleg pentru un termen de 3 ani de judecătorii Curții, având dreptul de a fi realeși încă pentru 3 ani.

TT1: The President of the Constitutional Court and the judge to replace him are elected for a period of three-year term by the judges of the Court, with the right to be re-elected for a second term.

TT2: 헌법 재판소장과 그를 대체할 판사는법원 판사에 의해 3년 임기로 선출하고 재선될 수 있다.

Another example of replacement is described below. In the ST sentence, the verb ‘to be’ and the adjective ‘accountable’ prepare together the ground for introducing more information about the noun they define – ‘individual judges’. Yet, the Romanian rendering of the sentence specific lack the equivalent of the verb ‘to be’, as well as the adjective ‘accountable’. The meaning of the original ‘are accountable’ is conveyed by the conjunction ‘de’ + the noun ‘responsabilizare’ + the possessive article ‘a’ that corresponds roughly to the English preposition ‘of’.

ST: The most obvious way in which individual judges are accountable is through the right of the party to the proceedings to appeal any judicial decision, in some cases through several higher courts.

TT1: Modul cel mai evident de responsabilizare a judecătorilor derivă din dreptul părții implicate în proces de a înainta o cerere de apel împotriva oricărei decizii judiciare, uneori chiar prin intermediul câtorva instanțe superioare.

TT2: 각 심사 위원이 책임을하는 가장 확실한 방법은판결에 불복하여 항소하는 소송의 당사자를 통과하거나 어떤 경우에는 상급법원을 통한다.

Here we can talk about conversion as well. The change of the parts of speech is a very common grammatical transformation in the translation process. In the examples below, we can easily notice that the English verb converted into a Romanian noun:

ST: In family cases, an appeal against a judge’s decision to place a child in care, to grant custody of a child to one parent rather than the other, or to determine how the matrimonial assets should be divided on divorce.

TT1: În cazurile ce țin de dreptul familiei, un apel împotriva deciziei judecătorului de plasare a unui copil în îngrijire, acordarea custodiei copilului unui părinte în defavoarea celuilalt, sau determinarea modului de separare a bunurilor dobândite de soți în timpul căsătoriei în caz de divorț.

TT2: 가사사건 경우에는 판사의 판결에 불복하는 데, 아이를 탁아소에 맡기거나 한 부모 아닌 다른 부모에게 양육권을 주거나 이혼 경우에는 결혼 재산을 나누는지 결정하다는 것.

The translation process generates some types of changes which may often correlate with grammatical changes, changes of sentence parts, thus, causing rearrangements of the syntactical structure of the sentence. Every now and then, when translating we may consider broader context, where conversion or such syntactical rearrangements are necessary.

II.2. Legal collocations

According to Oxford Dictionaries, a collocation is a pair or group of words that are habitually juxtaposed [24, online]. According to M. Henka, “collocations are two or more words that often co-occur in different environments. They create many difficulties in translation because the meaning of the word changes when it combines with other words. Thus, they cannot be translated on word for word basis” [17, online]. The translation of collocations reside in finding an acceptable TL equivalent in form and content.

In what follows, I would like to focus on the types of collocations. According to M. Benson, E. Benson and R. Ilson, collocations fall into two major groups: grammatical collocations and lexical collocations [11, online]:

1. A grammatical collocation is a phrase consisting of a dominant word (noun, adjective, verb) and a preposition or grammatical structure such as an infinitive or clause [ibidem, online].

ST: In family cases, an appeal against a judge’s decision to place a child in care, to grant custody of a child to one parent rather than the other, or to determine how the matrimonial assets should be divided on divorce;

TT1: În cazurile ce țin de dreptul familiei, o cerere de apel împotriva deciziei judecătorului de plasare a unui copil în îngrijire, acordarea custodiei copilului unui părinte în defavoarea celuilalt, sau determinarea modului de separare a bunurilor dobândite de soți în timpul căsătoriei în caz de divorț..

TT2: 가사사건 경우에는 판사의 판결에 불복하는 데, 아이를 탁아소에 맡기거나 한 부모 아닌 다른 부모에게 양육권을 주거나 이혼 경우에는 결혼 재산을 나누는지 결정하다는 것.

ST: Ei trebuiau să se conducă în activitatea lor de regulile stabilite în Rusia pentru procurorii guberniali și cei județeni, în conformitate cu instrucțiunile date.

TT1: In their work, they had to follow the rules laid down in Russia for gubernia and county prosecutors, in accordance with the given instructions.

TT2: 그들은 하는 일에 러시아에서 군과 자치주 대리인을 위하여 정한 규칙과 지시에 따라 해야 한다.

ST: Judicial review is the power to declare any law or executive action as unconstitutional if found that the law or executive action contradicts the provisions of the Constitution.

TT1: Revizuirea juridică reprezintă puterea de a declara orice lege ori acțiune executivă drept necontituțională în cazul în care legea sau acțiunea executivă contrazice dispozițiile Constituției.

TT2: 사법심사는 어떤 법률이나 행정 조치를 그 법률이나 행정 조치가 헌법의 조문을 반박하면 헌법에위 배되는 듯이 선언할 수 있다는 권한입니다.

As easily can be seen in the examples above, grammatical collocations tend to preserve almost the same word order. The same conclusion can be drawn if we check out Annex 1.

2. Lexical collocations, in contrast to grammatical collocations, normally do not contain prepositions, infinitives, or clauses. Typical lexical collocations consist of nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs [11, online]. Another distinct characteristic is that sometimes their word order is not perfectly preserved in translation, as can be seen in the examples below:

ST: Both federal and state courts may decide cases involving parties who live in different states. State courts have exclusive jurisdiction over the vast majority of case.

TT1: Atât tribunalele federale cât și cele de stat pot soluționa litigiile ce implică părți care trăiesc în țări diferite. Tribunalele de stat au jurisdicție exclusivă în marea majoritate a cazurilor.

TT2: 둘 다 연방정부와 주정부가 다른 국가에서 사는 당사자의 분쟁을 판결할 수 있다.

ST: Although there is no formal distinction among types of legal practice, there is much informal specialization.

TT1: În pofida faptului că nu există nici o distincție oficială între tipurile de practică juridică, între acestea există o diferențiere neoficială pronunțată.

TT2: 법률 업무 중에 형식적이 구분이 없음에도 불구하고 비형식적인 것이 많이 차이가 난다.

ST: Therefore, the Prosecutor’s Office had been performing its tasks in supervision of compliance with laws by the prosecution bodies and preliminary investigation.

TT1: Astfel, procuratura își exercita atribuțiile în supravegherea respectării legilor de către organele de cercetare penală și anchetă preliminară.

TT2: 그러므로, 검찰청은 검찰 기관과 예비 조사가 법률에 따르는지 준수의 감독 임무를 수행하고 있다.

The table below shows the collocational patterns from the examples above, indicating the parts of speech they consist of:

Table 1.Grammatical and Lexical Collocations

Additionally, I have made a short investigation of all the texts I translated during practice, and performed a statistical analysis of them. I have selected roughly all legal collocations I encountered in the texts given for translation and listed them in two separate categories: grammatical collocations and lexical collocations (see Annex 1 and Annex 2). The research results are presented in the diagram 1 from Annex 3. According to that diagram, the most common collocations are the lexical ones.

I have also tried to find out what are the structures of the most widespread lexical collocations (see the Diagram 2 and Diagram 3 from Annex 3). The Diagram 2 displays that the most common lexical collocations are those consisting of two words. The diagram from Diagram 3 shows that adjective + noun collocational pattern is the most widespread. Also, noun + noun collocational pattern is also quite common in legal texts. The verb + noun and noun + verb + adj. collocational patterns are rather rare.

When writing about collocations, I managed to find out that lexical collocations are easier to understand than grammatical collocations. For more examples of grammatical and lexical collocations, please refer to Annex 1 and Annex 2.

II.3. False friends in legal texts

The English vocabulary does not contain too many words that are graphically similar with words from the Romanian vocabulary, as they derive from different ancient languages. Still the Roman influence has affected the Anglo-Saxon base of English [18, online, p. 971]. Yet, there is a number of words that can easily give rise to misunderstandings, mainly because they look or sound somewhat like other words [13, online, p. 28].

Nonetheless, some words may have a very close signification to the word in the other language. For example the verb ‘to assist’ looks and sounds like the Romanian ‘a asista’, which in some cases means ‘a ajuta’. Another example would be the English noun ‘sanity’, which means ‘sănătate mintală’ in Romanian, but can be easily mistaken for ‘sănătate’. In this case, the wrong usage will have no serious consequence in understanding the speaker, as is shown in Annex 4.

On the other hand, there are some words that have an identical root, but come to mean differently in Romanian and in English, as the embodied notion is enlarged, restricted or specifically focused. Such false friends may cause the most important and dangerous mistakes. A list of such false friends is presented in Annex 4.

When translating, we tend to utter the first graphically/phonetically similar word from TL that comes to mind. In order to prevent the delivery of a wrong translation, a good translator must pay attention to the problematic words, such as shown in the examples below.

ST: The confirmation of additional charges as incur by The Consignor will be based on actual work and strict compliance with rules and regulations.

TT1: Confirmarea tarifelor suplimentare suportate de către Consignatar se va face pe baza activității concrete și respectarea strictă a normelor și reglementărilor.

TT2: 위탁자에 인해 발생으로 추가 요금의 승인은 실제 업무와 규정을 바탕으로 한다.

Thus, in the example above, the Romanian equivalent ‘actual’ would simply change the genuine meaning of the message. Please consider the following example:

ST: In the federal judiciary, the Judicial Conference of the United States, made up of 27 members (the Chief Justice of the United States and 26 judges from each geographic region of the United States) has overall administrative responsibility for the courts and has primary authority to make policy regarding the operation of the judicial branch of the government.

TT1: În sistemul judecătoresc federal, Conferința Judiciară a SUA, constituită din 27 de membri (președintele Curții Supreme a SUA și 26 de judecători din fiecare regiune geogrfica a SUA) are responsabilitate administrativă generală asupra tribunalelor și autoritate primară de elaborare a politicii de administrare a puterii judecătorești a statului.

TT2: 연방 사법 제도는, 27 명으로 구성된미국 사법 회의가 (미국 대법원장과 미국 지역마다 판사26 명) 법원에 대한 전반적 행정책임을 다하고 1차적 법원으로서 사법부 운용에 대한 정책을 세울 권한도 있다.

Although to a mere beginner, the English word ‘policy’ sounds almost like the Romanian word ‘poliție’ or ‘poliță’, one should pay attention to the context in order for the information to be explicit and to the point.

Many words in legal English need substantially different, in terms of form, foreign words, in a proper translation [13, online, p. 38]. For example, the English legal term ‘custom’ requires neither the usual Romanian translation ‘obicei’, nor the well-known ‘vamă’. Depending upon the context, it requires the following translation:

ST: With regard to amendments on specific products – custom made articles and textile toys, the Commission agrees with Council’s position.

TT1: În ceea ce privește modificările cu privire la produse specifice – articole individuale personalizate și jucării din materiale textile, Comisia este de acord cu poziția Consiliului.

TT2: 특정 제품에 대한 개정 – 주문에 따라 만든 상품과 섬유 장난감은 위원회가 이사회의 의견 에 동의한다.

The following example employs the English word ‘sentence’ twice. In both cases it has the same meaning, which is actually the second meaning given by Oxford Dictionaries, that is, “the punishment assigned to a defendant found guilty by a court, or fxed by law for a particular offence” [24, online]:

ST: In criminal cases there may be an appeal against conviction or sentence by the defendant, and a reference to the Court of Appeal by the Attorney General against a sentence that is considered to be unduly lenient in more serious cases.

TT1: In cazurile penale, poate avea loc un recurs din partea acuzatului împotriva unei sentințe sau condamnări, și o sesizare a Curții de apel de către Procurorul General pe marginea unei sentințe care este considerată nejustificat de blândă în cazul unor infracțiuni mai grave.

TT2: 형사 사건 경우, 피고는 유죄 선고와 판결에 불복공소할 수 있고, 대법원 거사총장의 항소법에 더 심각한 사건을 과하게 관대한 판결로 이룰 수 있다.

As we can see in the example above, it simply does not make sense to translate the English noun ‘sentence’ as ‘propoziție’ in Romanian, though a beginner translator would be tempted to translate using the first meaning, which is ‘propoziție’.

False friends (or false cognates) are believed to be Achilles’s heel for translators. The high probability of finding false cognates when analyzing the legal vocabularies of two different countries is a critical difficulty. Therefore, these false friends are nothing more than traps for beginner and unexperienced translators. These traps illustrate that the advantage of using language dictionaries and even at times the advantage of using legal dictionaries is not enough to provide an accurate legal translation, and no translation tool can take the place of specific legal training in the target and source languages and countries [26, online].

II.4. Cases of untranslatability

Certain legal expressions are so peculiar to their area that they can be regarded as ‘untranslatable’ because the legal concepts underlying them are so different.

The translator of legal terminology needs to find an equivalent in the TL legal system for the term of the SL legal system. Logically, full equivalence only occurs where the SL and the TL relate to the same legal system. Where the SL and TL relate to different legal systems, equivalence is rare [28, online, p. 174]. Therefore, subsidiary solutions must be sought. According to Susan Šarčević, as was mentioned in Peruginelli’s book [25, online, p. 26], the three subsidiary solutions that can be distinguished are as follows:

1. Preserving the source term. Let us consider the concept of ‘habeas corpus’, a fundamental tenet of English common law [14, online], which is used as is. A correct translation of the term is moot. Lawyers or any other educated person is fully aware of its meaning and use. Alternatively, there can be added literal translation in parentheses, or a footnote remark.

2. Paraphrasing. Such solution is used in case of a the term that does not exist as such in the TL legal system. So we expand the text, by explaining the term. For example, the translation of ‘barrister’ and ‘solicitor’ is problematic since there are no such names of legal professions either in Romanian or in Korean legal systems. Therefore, the translator will look up for adequate synonyms for these two names of legal professions. Accordingly, the Romanian translation is ‘avocat pledant’ and ‘avocat consultant’. In Korean, ‘법정 병호사’ and ‘사무 병호사’ respectively.

Let us consider the Latin word combination ‘Juris Doctor’, for example. In this case, paraphrasing is the most suitable solution:

ST: Most states require applicants to hold a law degree (Juris Doctor) from an accredited law school.

TT1: Majoritatea statelor solicită candidaților deținerea licenței în drept (Juris Doctor) de la școli de drept acreditate.

TT2: 대부분 국가들은 지원자들에게 공인된 법대 법학 학위 (Juris Doctor)를 요구한다.

Another challenging case is the phrase ‘Federal District Court’. I have looked up on the Internet, I have consulted a couple of dictionaries, I have even read some articles on U.S. Legal System, and I have found as many as eight different translations, but none of them seemed to fit perfectly in the Target Text.

What is even more troublesome is the fact that I could not proceed further with the translation because such expressions were rather often used in the whole text. These are culture-bound expressions, and the fact that our legal system lack such cultural phenomena, respectively, it lacks such terminology. So only paraphrasing can save the situation:

ST: Congress has established two levels of federal courts below the Supreme Court: the U.S. district courts and the U.S. circuit courts of appeals.

TT1: Congresul a constituit două nivele de curți federale sub Curtea Supremă: instanțe federale de district ale SUA și instanțe federale de apel de circuit ale SUA.

TT2: 의회는 연방 대법원을 두 가지 유형으로 구분되여 있다: 연방 지방 법원과 연방 순회 항소법이다.

Therefore, it gave me one more useful and very helpful tip – do not skip the terms difficult to translate, consider them well, find the suitable translation and only then move forward.

3. Neologisms. “A neologism must be chosen in such a way that a lawyer from the TL legal system could get an idea of its meaning: the term must possess some transparency” [28, online, p. 178]. Sometimes we just mix and match roots, suffixes and prefixes and come up with entirely new word, whose meaning will be understood by the listener/reader. However, the result is often clumsy, and it almost always duplicates an existing word which is frequently shorter and far more familiar [27, online].

ST: We ought to support the Government in its fight against terrorism and violence and therefore dispense with overly accusatorial remarks directed at the government.

TT1: Trebuie să susținem guvernul filipinez în lupta sa împotriva terorismului și a violenței și, prin urmare, să evităm remarcile mult prea acuzatoare la adresa guvernului.

TT2: 우리가테러와 폭력의 전쟁에서 정부를 지원하고, 따라서 정부를 겨냥하는 지나친 비난 발언을 없애야 한다.

Robert M. Schroeck claimes in his article “A Fanfic Writer's Guide To Writing”, that ‘accusatorial’ is a neologism: “While it is perfectly good purely in terms of the rules by which English words are assembled from their component parts, it does nothing that ‘accusing’ or ‘accusatory’ wouldn't do in less space and fewer syllables” [ibidem, online].

The following examples contain the adjective ‘irrecusable’, that means not able to be rejected or challenged, as an evidence or a statement:

ST: The decision of the Constitutional Court of 17 February 2009 in this regard, is irrecusable proof, (…).

TT1: Decizia Curții Constituționale din data de 14 februarie 2009 în acest sens este dovadă irecuzabilă, (…).

TT2: 이 점에서, 2009년 2월 14일에 헌법 재판소의 결정은 거부할 수 없는 증거, (…).

Nevertheless, one should be aware that neologisms could very often lead to confusion, thus, making the ST rather difficult to translate.

CONCLUSION

Every translation activity involves one or more distinct goals and whatever they are, the main goal of translation is to serve as an intercultural communication vehicle among peoples. One of the things I realized during this practice is producing good translations is not enough to have a superficial acquaintance with another language. One must have a thorough knowledge of both languages (the SL and TL) and the ability to deal with semantic differences. A reliable translation must use correct industry-specific terminology, render all potential nuances and uncertainties of the ST and not cause ambiguities when the ST provides clarity. It is not enough just to know the translation of the word. A translator has to know the different aspects, synonyms, the many uses of the word and contextual nuances.

In addition, as different languages implement different standards, undesired and highly problematic results can simply derive from not taking into account the subtleties of grammar and punctuation rules properly. For example, even though I new the special use of the modal verb ‘shall', only now I realized the crucial importance of it in legal texts. Likewise, the tiniest shifts of word order, the conversion process, the many cases when the verb is dropped out are just a few of subtleties that I confronted with.

Furthermore, the translation process generates some types of changes which may often correlate with grammatical changes, changes of sentence parts, thus, causing rearrangements of the syntactical structure of the sentence. Every now and then, when translating we may consider broader context, where conversion or such syntactical rearrangements are necessary. Therefore, I became aware of the fact that none of the rules in English or Romanian languages are available in Korean language, because the usual word order in Romanian sentences is SVO (Subject-Verb-Object). English is a SVO language as well, whereas Korean is a SOV (Subject-Object-Verb) language.

Another aspect I would like to cover is the knowledge I gained during this practice through the numerous difficulties I had to deal with (another range of difficulties!). That is the use of specific words and expressions in both the ST and the TT. There were some word combinations that I did not exactly know how to render their meaning into the Target Language. That is the case of grammatical and legal collocations. After a short investigation of all the texts I translated during practice, I performed a statistical analysis. The research results are presented in Annex 4, as follows:

grammatical collocations tend to preserve almost the same word order, while the word order of lexical collocations is not perfectly preserved in translation;

according to the diagrams I drew up, the most common collocations are the lexical ones;

the most common lexical collocations are those consisting of two words;

adjective + noun collocational pattern is the most widespread. Also, noun + noun collocational pattern is also quite common in legal texts. The verb + noun and noun + verb + adj., collocational patterns are rather rare;

lexical collocations are easier to understand than grammatical collocations.

When translating, we tend to utter the first graphically/phonetically similar word from TL that comes to mind. In order to prevent the delivery of a wrong translation, a good translator must pay attention to the problematic words, id est, false friends. False friends are believed to be Achilles’s heel for translators. The high probability of finding false cognates when analyzing the legal vocabularies of two different countries is a critical difficulty. Therefore, these false friends are nothing more than traps for beginner and unexperienced translators. These traps illustrate that the advantage of using general dictionaries and even at times the advantage of using legal dictionaries is not enough to provide an accurate legal translation.

Additionally, certain legal expressions are so peculiar to their area that they can be regarded as untranslatable because the legal concepts underlying them are so different. Logically, full equivalence only occurs where the SL and the TL relate to the same legal system. Where the SL and TL relate to different legal systems, equivalence is rare. In this regard, another trap for the beginners and unexperienced translators, that could very often lead to confusion are the neologisms. A neologism must be chosen in such a way that a lawyer from the TL legal system could get an idea of its meaning. The term must possess some transparency.

Thus, in addition to the fact that I realized the enormous importance of each grammar structure, each wrong use of prepositions, mistranslation or incorrect use of the words, unwise stylistic rendering or contextual nuances, I was also able to:

acquire and consolidate some skills in translation of different types of documents. I had to deal with legal documents, such as prenuptial agreements, consignment agreements, summons, purchase and sale agreements, divorce petitions, rental agreements, letters of request, invitations, applications for a temporary resident visa, etc;

realize the importance of having an adequate linguistic competence;

appreciate the practical value of the well-known expression “to measure thrice and cut once”. The translation of terms and terminology must be checked out several times, in different sources, to be sure of their accuracy;

become aware of the fact that a translator must not simply translate:

a skilled judiciary interpreter and/or translator must always study;

a qualified judiciary interpreter and/or translator does research in that field, in order to possess excellent writing, research and analytic skills;

a shrewd translator reads tones of books, as reading books increases the vocabulary;

a judiciary interpreter and/or translator must be knowledgeable about the structure of the court system and the terms of art related to criminal and civil justice settings.

a competent translator is always tempted to seek more, to be more, to achieve more.

So, in conclusion I would like to say that I think I have chosen a good career path. All the various situations I have encountered required great effort and patience from my part. Nevertheless, in the end I found out things that I could not understand just by reading specialised literature. I have learnt that one must experience in order to understand and properly apply the newly acquired knowledge.

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ANNEX 1. Grammatical collocations in legal texts

ANNEX 2. Lexical collocations in legal texts

ANNEX 3. Legal collocations. Lexicometric diagrams.

(Part 1)

Diagram 1. Grammatical and lexical collocations.

Diagram 2. The structure of legal collocations. Number of words.

(Part 2)

Diagram 3. The structure of lexical collocations.

ANNEX 4. False friends in legal translation

ANNEX 5. Glossary of legal terms

ANNEX 6. Prenuptial Agreement / Contract Prenupțial

PRENUPTIAL AGREEMENT

(original text)

CONTRACT PRENUPȚIAL

(traducere din limba engleză în limba română)

________________________________________________, denumit în continuare Vitorul Soț, și ________________________________________________, denumită în continuare Viitoarea Soție, la data de ______________ convin prin prezentul contract următoarele:

Viitorul Soț și Viitoarea Soție preconizează în viitorul apropiat să se căsătorească și doresc să stabilească drepturile și responsabilitățile referitor la veniturile și bunurile fiecăruia, și veniturile și bunurile care pot fi dobândite separat sau împreună în timpul căsătoriei.

Viitorul Soț și Viitoarea Soție și-au declarat pe deplin activele și pasivele financiare, prezentate mai detaliat în Situațiile Financiare anexate la prezentul constract ca proba A și B.

Cu excepția cazurilor prevăzute de prezentul contract, Viitorul Soț și Viitoarea Soție renunță la următoarele drepturi:

de a partaja averea celuilalt în cazul decesului acestora,

de a acorda pensie de întreținere soțului/soției, atât temporară cât și permanentă,

de a partaja majorarea valorii în timpul căsătoriei averii părților,

de a partaja pensia, participarea la profit, sau alte conturi de retragere ale celeilalte,

de a diviza averea separată a părților, fie deținută la moment sau dobândită în continuare,

la orice pretenții în baza perioadei de coabitare a părților.

[DE SPECIFICAT EXCEPȚIILE RELEVANTE AICI.]

[DISPOZIȚII SUPLIMENTARE AICI] Acestea se pot referi începând de la creșterea copiilor într-o anumită religie până la distribuirea responsabilităților gospodărești între părți.

Ambele Părți sunt reprezentați de un consilier juridic independent și separat la propria alegere.

Ambele Părți dispun de venituri și bunuri separate pe care în mod independent le pot utiliza pentru propriile necesități financiare.

Prezentul contract constituie întregul acord al Părților și poate fi modificat doar în formă scrisă, cu participarea ambelor Părți.

În cazul în care se stabilește că una din dispozițiile prezentului contract nu este valabilă pentru că contravine legislației aplicabile, această dispoziție se consideră separabilă de restul contractului, în așa mod că restul contractului rămâne valabil și aplicabil din punct de vedere juridic.

Prezentul contract este încheiat în conformitate cu legislația _________________

________________, și orice litigiu legat de aplicabilitatea acestuia va fi clarificat prin referire la legislația țării respective.

Pezentul contract va produce efecte imediat de la data încheierii căsătoriei Părților.

AM CITIT CONTRACTUL DE MAI SUS, AM ANALIZAT SUFICIENT CONSECINȚELE PREZENTULUI ACT, ÎNȚELEG PE DEPLIN CONȚINUTUL ACESTUIA, SUNT DE ACORD CU CONDIȚIILE ACESTUIA ȘI MĂ OBLIG DE BUNĂ VOIE LA REALIZAREA PREZENTULUI CONTRACT.

___________________________ ___________________________

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