[when talking about legal texts], a successful translation should communicate the content of a document, all the while employing equivalent, accurate syntax, semantics and pragmatics.
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
“What translators should aim at is such a relationship between a source term and a target term that the latter may be used as an equivalent for the former in a given context. Those terms are not identical but they may be used as equivalent if they are similar enough at the concept level.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
“Legal translation is extremely difficult because it involves not only translating terms but also the underlying legal system hidden behind them.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
“Many non-experienced translators think that a good legal dictionary is enough to do the job. They do not realise that even the best dictionary does not contain all the terms they are going to encounter in the course of translation. And even lexicographers can make mistakes. Consulting a dictionary and finding some kind of equivalent does not mean that translators find what they are looking for.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
As mentioned in a recent post, glossaries can be useful aids in legal translation and in legal interpretation. As the number of migrants/refugees entering Greece and other European countries increases, could initiatives similar to the Canadian multilingual glossary outlined below provide a replicable model for improving the quality of legal translation and court interpreting?Διαβάστε Περισσότερα
“If translators themselves lack linguistic and legal knowledge even the best already existing legal dictionaries and selection of legal documents will not suffice to get good legal translations. The problem is that in order to translate a text written in a language for special purposes not only is advanced knowledge of a foreign language (not to mention a native one) essential , but also knowledge of the subject-matter discussed in the text is necessary.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
Back in June 2015 I attended the Transius Conference on legal and institutional translation hosted by the University of Geneva.
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be summarising some of the main points made by speakers based on notes taken at the conference. The idea is to convey a rough flavour of the main ideas presented at the conference. This is the second blogpost in the series…Διαβάστε Περισσότερα
While certainly not an infallible aid in the process of legal translation, glossaries -especially monolingual ones- can be useful in understanding the legal terms as used in the source text, which can make translation of the legal text into the target language easier and more accurate.
A colleague recently drew my attention to this monolingual English glossary of basic legal terms from the Ministry of the Attorney General (Ontario / Canada). The glossary can be accessed at:
http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/english/glossary
Because Canada is bilingual, a monolingual French version is also available at:
http://www.attorneygeneral.jus.gov.on.ca/french/glossary/
“Even very well matched parallel texts cannot solve the problem of source-language concepts which have no equivalents in the target language … in the age of the information society and ‘information deluge’, sometimes it is very difficult to find reliable parallel texts among those which are available … parallel texts do not solve the problem of finding equivalents to concepts and institutions which do not exist in the target language.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
“The legal function of the text gives it a very specific meaning. The fact that a legal text always functions in a definite legal reality requires a special translative treatment and approach, that is the adequate transposition of the legal realities in question.”
Aleksandra Matulewska, Lingua Legis in Translation, Peter Lang Press, 2007
