Article Fbce47756f48d1829cac94b86d15df22 [621371]

502 DIFFICULTIES AND STRATEGIES IN THE PROCESS OF LEGAL
TEXTS TRANSLATION

Adela-Elena, Dumitrescu 1

Abstract:
This article aims to identify the difficulties and fi nd approaches in translating legal texts which
involve a lot of different types of translation problems. T he translator has the task to discover proper
strategies to render the translated text comprehensible for t he reader in the target language simultaneously
reflecting the unique character of the legal system from the sourc e language country. Some of the necessary
strategies which the translator should take into account are: t he borrowing of original terms, the
naturalization of specific terms into the target language, the language calques usage, or the introduction of
descriptive translation. Even if a translator tries to solve a ny difficulty when he translates a legal text, he
must maintain the source culture characteristics and do not deprive the texts of their specific character.

Keywords: legal terminology, equivalence, literate translation, literal tra nslation, culture

1. English as an international language of legal communication
Globalisation and the growth of international organisations (e.g. UN , EU, NATO,
WTO) have brought an increasing interest in legal documentation ( e.g. legislation,
regulations, agreements) using English as a common language. T he importance of legal
English lies expressively in its being the medium for international (including electronic)
commerce. English is the standard language for many companies, f or take-over bids, for
international commercial contracts, for arbitration, for all c ross border legal transactions
and international legal issues in particular” despite all national language legislation.
English is the language of international law and multidisciplina ry professional
service firms. In addition, English may be either source or tar get language, even the
medium or relay language between source and target languages.
Legal English is in course of conquering the world while the other major languages
are incapable of posing a threat to the position of English as the “lawyer’s lingua franca .

2. Cultural factors in producing and translating legal texts
These circumstances as thus described imply the necessity for meaningful
communication of information and ideas. At the same time, in creased global interaction
means that the capacity to communicate interculturally in t he world using a common
means, in our case the English.
If the language is perceived as a social practice, culture be comes the fundamental
principle of language teaching. The relationship between language and culture is both
complex and elaborate; in addition communication problems may arise fr om cultural
differences; moreover, these factors become particularly acut e in professional setting when
interacting parties use the same linguistic code (i.e. Engli sh), but not the same cultural
style. Thus also English can be defined as a device for mutual unde rstanding, it can also be
discussed that English “can also act as a medium and subject of global misunderstanding.” 2
In the legal context, these factors play a role, since languag e and law are closely
related and are generated through social practices. Indeed, langua ge is the core of the law,
since the law is substantially formulated through language.
The development and status of both ordinary and legal language reveal the
relatively autonomous development and status of legal cultures and l egal systems. The

1 Lector dr., Universitatea din Pitesti, adela_dum@yahoo.com
2 Spinchtinger, D., “The Spread of English and its Appropri ation”, p. 66, Master’s Thesis: Vienna University.
Available at http:// www.geocities.com/dspichtinger/dipl.htm last visited 02 September 2014

503 result is that “the technical language of jurists is extreme ly system-bound. Since legal
systems vary from state to state, each country has its ow n independent legal terminology.” 1
Legal translation is often more difficult than other types of technical translation
because of the system-bound nature of legal terminology. Unlike scie ntific or other
technical terminology, each country has its own legal terminology (based on the particular
legal system of that country), which will often be quite different even fr om the legal
terminology of another country with the same language.
The system-bound nature of legal text means that successful tran slation into
another language requires competency in at least three separ ate areas:
1. basic knowledge of the legal systems, both of the source and ta rget languages;
2. familiarity with the relevant terminology;
3. competency in the specific legal writing style of the ta rget language.
Without these skills, the translator’s interpretation will be a word-for-word
translation that is often incomprehensible.
Personally, I find translation of legal documents to be one of the most interesting
and challenging areas of translation, because they often require both a combination of the
creativity of literary translations and the precision of te chnical translations.
Thus, the professional legal translator must be part linguist, pa rt legal scholar and
part detective, willing and able to search out and define legal concepts expressed in the
source language of a document that may not even have an equivale nt in the language or
legal system of the target text. The translator must first decode the source text and
reconstruct its meaning in the target text. In many cases, the translator is limited to finding
a functional equivalent for a word or phrase or a parenthetical explanation because an exact
translation is impossible.
Translation of legal documents tends to involve more culture-speci fic than
universal components. In contrast to what happens with mathematics or chemistry, where
there is an objective common knowledge base, legal terminology i s based on the particular
legal system of each country.
Each legal system has its own history, social values and polit ical context, and has
been designed to meet the needs of a particular nation, which obviousl y differ from one
country to another. For instance, the Anglo-Saxon and Continental leg al systems differ in
many respects.
Due to this diversity of legal systems, one of the major dif ficulties faced by legal
translators is finding exact terminological equivalents. A pa rticular concept in the
Romanian legal system may not necessarily exist within the fr amework of the English
system, or, it may exist, but refer to a different concept .
In many other countries, public jury “trial” processes do not exist, but there are
other judicial systems. In these situations, a literal trans lation of the word “trial” might
mislead the reader.
Translators of legal texts must have a complete understandi ng of legal
classification, legal processes and the systems of both of the source and target languages.
Terminology mistakes in the translation of legal documents may have serious
repercussions, such as losing a case or causing liability iss ues.
A good legal translator also knows that even within the legal fi eld there are
completely separate areas of law that require specific tra nslation techniques: a contractual
document has little in common with a will, an administrative certificate, a judicial decision
or a statute, to name a few examples.

1 Mattila, H., Comparative Legal Linguistics, p. 106, Ashgate, 2006

504 The legal decoder knows that he or she must consult not only a monoling ual legal 1
dictionary, but also an important documentation regarding the subje ct matter, and that
bilingual dictionaries, while useful, should be used with cau tion.
When faced with international disputes involving different langua ges and legal
systems, legal counsel and their clients would be well advised to obtain the services of
translators able to successfully bridge the divide of legal sy stems, as well as language and
culture, in order to provide literate rather than literal translation 2

3. Legal Terminology & Style
Legal terminology and phraseology is the major concern for the lega l translator as
he/she may bring to a common two or more legal systems which a re sometime extremely
diverse and culture-bound. I have chosen legal terminology as point of this lecture
because this is the key characteristic of language which act ually connects a variety of legal
genders and is one of the most important aspects in legal trans lation. Each legal language
has its own specific and complex vocabulary, phrases, and denominat ions. This more than
often faces the translator with the impossibility to find a corr espondent in the target
language, i.e. the problem of non-equivalence.
Legal languages differ greatly when it comes to using a speci fic terminology. For
example, the lexicon of legal English, abundant in archaism, L atinism, terms of Norman
and French origin, terms with flexible meanings, has traditiona lly been a source of wonder
for the common people and at the same time the source of many de bates concerning its
demanded renewal among specialists in the legal and the lingui stic fields: “Legal English
[…] has traditionally been a special variety of English. My sterious in form and expression,
it is mixed with law Latin and Norman French, heavily dependent on the past and
unashamedly archaic” 3.
Comparing it to other legal languages, legal Romanian has a re latively restricted
terminology. In the contemporary Romanian language, legal voca bulary is an organized
body of terms, statistically characterized by restricted we alth and high concentration. The
legal terminology used by the Romanian specialists includes a v ariety of neologisms,
especially from French, as this language favoured the development of derivational process
“by adapting an inventory of neologic affixes and affixoids from the classical languages” 4
A generalized feature of all legal terminologies is the mixture of strictly legal terms
with terms of belongings to other specialized fields. In communit y law, for example, one is
likely to find terms pertaining to a variety of disciplines, ra nging from medicine (the
approval of a new drug for example) to agriculture (ex. Grant c ontracts for farmers
specifying the type of crop, chemicals allowed and forbidden etc.) The example below is
an excerpt from a European Council document.

Commission of the European Communities Comisia Comunitaților Europene
Brussels, 9.10.2009
COM(212)662 final
Proposal for a COUNCIL DECISION
on the conclusion of an Agreement in the form of
Exchange of Letters between the European
Community and Barbados, Belize, […] on the Bruxelles, 9.10.2012
COM(212)662 final
Propunere de DECIZIE A CONSILIULUI
privind încheierea unui accord sub forma unui
schimb de scrisori între Comunitatea Europeană și
Barbados, Belize, […] privind prețurile garantate

2 By the dychotomy of literate translation and literal translation we want to point out the difference between
a well-documented translation and a word-for-word translation .
3 Butt, P., Castle, R., Modern Legal Drafting, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 1
4 Cazan, O., Procedee de formare a terminologiei juridice românești, în revista “Philologica Romanica”, 9, p.
226 available online at http:// www.romaniaminor.net/ianua/Ianua09/09.pdf

505 guaranteed prices for cane sugar for the 2008/2009,
2009/2010, 2010/2011, and from first July 2011 to
30 September 2011 delivery periods and on the
conclusion of the Agreement in the form of
Exchange of Letters between the European
Community and the Republic of India on the
guaranteed prices for cane sugar for the same
delivery periods.
EXPLANATORY MEMORANDUM
1. Protocol 3 on ACP sugar attached to Annex V to
the ACP –EC Partnership Agreement, and the
agreement on sugar between the European
Community and the Republic of India provide for a
Community undertaking to purchase and import at
guaranteed prices cane sugar which the exporting
countries concerned cannot market in the
Community at prices equivalent to or higher than the
guaranteed prices. pentru zahărul din trestie pentru perioadele de
livrare 2008/2009, 2009/2010, 2010/2011, și de la
1 iulie 2011 până la 30 septembrie 2011 și a unui
accord sub formă de schimb de scrisori între
Comunitatea Europeană și Republica India privind
prețurile garantate pentru zahărul din trestie pentru
aceleași perioade de livrare.

EXPUNERE DE MOTIVE
1. Protocol nr. 3 privind zahărul ACP atașat la
anexa V la Acordul de parteneriat ACP –EC, și
acordul privind zahărul încheiat între Comunitatea
Economică Europeană și Republica India prevăd
angajamentul Comunității de a cumpăra și a
importa, la prețuri garantate zahăr din trestie pe
care țările exportatoare în cauză nu îl pot
comercializa în Comunitate la prețuri echivalente
sau mai mari decât decât prețurile garantate.
/g3
As can be clearly seen from the example, legal terms a nd phrases like decision,
proposal, conclusion of an agreement, explanatory memorandum, guaranteed prices ,
delivery periods, to provide for are used alongside economic terms like to purchase and
import , exporting country, while the object of the decision is relat ed to agriculture, more
specifically, cane sugar .
The mixture of special-purpose language is another peculiarity of legal language
which gives rise to many translation problems. The translator o f legal documents must not
only be familiar with the source and target languages, the two legal systems involved, but
also with the subject matter of the document to be transl ated.
The fact that the audience of such legal texts is often th e common person has been
neglected in the choosing simpler terms, closer to common langua ge. Nevertheless, legal
terminology is shed from the major changes by the barrier of leg al precision and accuracy.
The next topic of our lecture will deal with aspects of legal language more likely to suffer
changes in this era of communication and interaction.
Under the umbrella of style we can discuss all the other peculi arities of legal
language which cannot be accounted for in the category of legal le xicon. The use of old-
fashioned syntax, lengthy and complex sentences, the redundancy discours e, the overuse of
performative verbs, conjoined phrases and lists of words, preferenc e for impersonal
constructions and so on. These are the most important features whi ch allow us to
distinguish legal style from the style of the common language or other LSP. One of the
defining characteristics of legal style is the use of long se ntences. Peter Tiersma concluded
that the ground for the preference of complex and long sentences in E nglish is the “desire
to place all information on a particular topic into one self-conta ined unit” 1. The author is
nevertheless worry about choosing this approach in order to rid the langua ge of the
supposed ambiguity created by the use of separate sentences. The example below will
support the author’s scepticism and stress the reverse of this m otivation for the use of long
sentences, i.e. the fact that the ambiguity is likely to ar ise particularly in such long and
complex sentences. The excerpt chosen to illustrate this is taken f rom an agreement of
distribution, drafted in bilingual versions Romanian and English:

La terminarea prezentului contract, Distribuitorul va
proceda imediat, pe cheltuiala proprie la : On termination of this Agreement the
Distributor shall proceed, at his expense:

1 Tiersma, P., Legal Language, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999, p. 56

506 a) întreruperea și scoaterea din uz și/sau expunere,
directă sau indirectă, a oricărui nume, marcă de
commercializare și a oricărui material tipărit, de
reclamă și propagandă, care conține astfel de nume sau
mărci;
b) retragerea din utilizare și/sau expunere directă sau
indirectă, a oricărui nume, marcă de comercializare,
cuvânt ștanțat sau combinații de cuvinte asemănătoare
numelor sau mărcilor de comercializare utilizate sau
reclamate de către Exportator, care ar putea conduce la
confuzii și nesiguranță inducând în eroare consumatorii
și publicul, și care va deveni efectivă în cadrul unei
perioade de timp rezonabile convenite între părți. a) to cease or take out any direct or indirect
display, the use of any name, trade mark,
printed materials used as advertisement or for
any other publicity purposes;
b) to cease using or displaying either directly or
indirectly any name, trade mark, stencilled
words or word combinations similar to the
names or trade marks utilized or advertised by
the Exporter which might make confusion or
uncertainty, thus misleading the consumers, this
cease taking effect within a reasonable period
agreed upon by the parties.

Both languages seem to adopt the same style when it comes to de limitating the
chunks of information contained in this sample of legal discourse. The information is
nevertheless divided into three main groups with the use of the c olon and the two lettered
paragraphs, but there is still no sign of formal marking at th e end at the clause like a full
stop and a capital letter for the first world of the next sentence.
The use of full stop is not the main problem when it comes to unde rstanding this
paragraph. The most striking feature, which probably led to adopting t his laborious style of
the two clauses, is the extensive use of conjoined prepositional phrases: “to cease using or
displaying either directly or indirectly any name, trade mark, stencilled words or word
combinations similar to the names or trade marks utilized or advertised by the exporter
which might make confusion or uncertainty, thus misleading the consumers…”
The quest for precision is also behind the use of common names as proper names
and the recurrence of some terms making the legal discourse so redundant.
The style of legal language and particularly the one used in wr itten documents is
therefore just as different as the systems of law diffe r from one country to another. Thus
the legal translator must be aware of and familiar with thes e stylistic peculiarities of the
legal language in general and with the stylistic features spe cific to each legal language
(source and target) in order to be able to render a functional tra nslation of the original text.
The source text should obey the stylistic rules at use in the t arget language and not import
the style of the source text.
/g3
Bibliography:
1. Butt, P., Castle, R., Modern Legal Drafting, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006
2. Cazan, O., Procedee de formare a terminologiei juridice românești, în revista
“Philologica Romanica”
3. Mattila, H., Comparative Legal Linguistics, Ashgate, 2006
4. Spinchtinger, D., “The Spread of English and its Appropriation” , Master’s Thesis:
Vienna Universit
5. Tiersma, P., Legal Language, Chicago/London: The University of Chicago Press, 1999