Approaches to legal terminological systems translation

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Approaches to legal terminological systems translation

Iryna Suima

Associate Professor of the Department of English

for non-philology majors

Dnipro National University

named after Oles Honchar

candidate of philological sciences, associate professor

The terminological peculiarities of the English-language legal field, which combines terms and legal concepts of different time of origin, as well as the general terminological irregularity of English-language legal terminology is a difficult obstacle that has to be overcome in the process of translation. One of the ways to overcome such a linguistic and legal obstacle is for a legal translator to create a certain system of "translation" coordinates with a legally and linguistically justified choice of certain interlanguage terminological correspondences, and this system should be based on an understanding of the factors that cause translation difficulties. The translation of legal terminology from English into Ukrainian is influenced by factors of an objective nature (the presence of terms reflecting English-language legal specificity, ambiguity and variability of terms, their semantic opacity, stylistically colored combinations of terms, etc.), and factors of a subjective order (principle of the first association, general combinations of terms, etc.). The specificity of legal translation is associated with the presence of a wide categorical apparatus, which differs depending on the field of legal regulation (public and private, substantive and procedural law, special and complex areas of law, general law, international law, etc.). Any legal document contains highly specialized terminology used in a certain area of law. In addition, legal terminology has firmly entered the colloquial vocabulary and even into the usage of fiction. The result of legal work depends on the exact translation of the legal document, as well as the adequate interpretation of legal terminology.

Translation of terms is a problem that translators face quite often, especially in the process of translating legal texts. A specialist, when translating such texts, must take into account the peculiarities of the translation of terms. The most optimal approach to translating terms is to find the equivalent of the original language in the language to be translated. This method is relevant when both languages refer to countries that have reached the same level of industrial and economic development. However, if the selection of an equivalent is not possible, the translator turns to other methods of translation. A number of scientists distinguish two main types of translation: direct (literal) and indirect (external) translation [1].

Indirect translation is used in those cases when some elements cannot be reproduced in the translated language without changing the order of passage of these elements or without changing the lexical units themselves. In the framework of indirect translation, such methods of translation as transposition, modulation, equivalence and adaptation are distinguished. Literal translation is used in the presence of structural parallelism and includes some methods of translation, such as borrowing, tracing and, accordingly, literal translation. In addition to the already mentioned requirements for the translation of terms, there are a number of other requirements, conditions and factors that, without a doubt, greatly influence both the choice of a certain way of translating a term and its functioning in the target language. Among them, the following should be highlighted: 1) the tendency to shorten or compress: the tendency is mainly observed in multi-component terms, the structure of which is sometimes too cumbersome; 2) the influence of extralinguistic factors [2]. Legal translation is one of the types of special translation and it can be considered in two ways: as a branch of practical language activity and as an academic discipline [3]. As a field of practical linguistic activity, legal translation is one of the types of special translation, the object of which is the transmission of various written and oral legal texts through another language. Studying the linguistic features of written and oral speech on legal topics is of great importance for a translator.

Such features include: 1) a large saturation of legal materials with legal vocabulary, the main part of which consists of legal terms, many of which are translated into Ukrainian by phrases or descriptively; 2) the presence in written and oral speech on legal topics of special idiomatic expressions and phraseological combinations that are not used or rarely used in general literary language; 3) the presence of some stylistic deviations from general literary norms, sometimes quite significant [4]. This can include: a) the wide use of elliptical constructions (abbreviated, without articles) in the English language, especially in standard documents, the form and content of which change within small limits (summaries, reports, decisions, conclusions). b) the presence of official clerical style phrases in documents devoted to general and administrative-economic issues; c) strictly regulated use of verb forms and inflections of special terminology in certain legal documents. 4) use of Latin words and expressions in legal texts; 5) the presence of abbreviations, most of which are used only in legal texts and documents [5]. Researchers of the peculiarities of legal translation note that in the process of translating legal texts, it should be remembered that many common words in legal texts may have terminological meaning. In this case, in order to avoid interference, that is, the influence of known meanings of words and expressions of general or special meaning in the legal text, it is necessary to use special dictionaries and reference books. It is the complexity of the construction and content of legal terms that cause a number of difficulties.

The choice of translation method is influenced not only by the requirements placed on the term, in particular, implementation, variation stability and the requirement of euphony, but also by certain linguistic trends, for example, the desire for compression and reduction, as well as a number of extralinguistic factors, such as the influence of technologically more developed countries and their languages into the language of translation, psychological factors and the tendency to create "universals" to facilitate intercultural communication. Therefore, not always each of the above requirements for terms is observed in the process of translating legal terms. In the process of translating simple and complex terms, the most used is the direct method of translation, in particular, borrowing. Sometimes the translation of terms does not happen at all. The reason for the lack of translation, perhaps, should be sought among extralinguistic factors. However, multi-component terms are rendered from English to Ukrainian in a more complex way. Here you can find the use of an indirect method of translation. Sometimes translators even resort to a combination of direct and indirect methods of translation. Scientists offer a large number of translation methods. The main specificity of the translation of terms is that the most important condition for achieving equivalence is the preservation of the content accuracy of the units of the original language in the translation, ensuring the absolute identity of the concepts expressed by the terms of the original language and the translated language. In other words, if the terms of both languages code the concepts of the corresponding scientific field, and the identity of the codes of the sender and the recipient is an elementary condition for successful communication, then ensuring the identity of the significant terms of the concepts is the most important task of the translation of the branch text Researchers distinguish two main situations that arise when translating terms: when there are equivalents of the original term in the translation language recorded in dictionaries and when such equivalents are absent [4].

And from the point of view of difficulties in understanding and translating the terms can be divided them into three groups: a) terms denoting foreign realities identical to domestic realities; b) terms denoting foreign realities, for which there are no domestic realities, but there are generally accepted terminological equivalents; c) terms denoting foreign realities for which there are no domestic analogues, and there are no generally accepted terminological equivalents. The situation when there is an unambiguous and officially fixed equivalent of a translation unit in the translation language obviously does not cause certain problems in the process of their reproduction. Whereas in the second situation, due to the lack of a generally accepted equivalent, certain difficulties arise. We often come across the decipherment of such a concept as "temporarily non-equivalent term". Non-equivalence is a consequence of the reflection of national characteristics of individual language levels. Non-equivalent vocabulary is lexical units that reflect an ethnically specific characteristic of objective reality at the conceptual and linguistic levels. The method of solving the problem of nonequivalence can be called the process of synonymization. Synonymization means the selection and analysis of synonyms as a certain way of developing synonymous industry terms, which allows improving the practice of professionally oriented translation. This method makes it possible to more accurately relate the terms and their combination of certain spheres of activity or fields of knowledge.

There are three general conditions for adequate translation of terms. First, the correct (adequate) translation of individual terms in the text must be carried out. Secondly, each term must be checked from the point of view of the term system in which it is included in the original language and the language of translation. And thirdly, differences in terms due to the specifics of each language should be taken into account. When fulfilling each of the conditions, the translator faces certain difficulties. The scope of the meaning of the term in the original language may not coincide with the scope of the meaning of the same term in the translation language, which can make it difficult to provide an adequate translation. There may also be a situation when there is no equivalent of the source language term in the translation language.

Regardless of the translator's level of qualification and the situation, the terms may in some cases still be translated inaccurately. There are four main reasons for the inaccurate translation of terminology: 1) the development of scientific thought (a case when there is no suitable term for a new concept, and the closest or similar term is used to name it at first); this is precisely what causes the ambiguity of the term, which in most cases disappears with the development of the concept; 2) stylistic goal (the translator can resort to using synonyms of the term or its short text variants to avoid excessive monotony of the text and multiple repetitions); 3) simple carelessness or incompetence of the translator.

For those situations when there are no equivalents in the term, some translation strategies can be offered: 1) borrowing the term through transliteration or transcription with a brief interpretation; 2) tracing (if the term appeared in the language through semantic transfer); 3) removal; 4) descriptive translation; 5) modulation, in which the original word or phrase is replaced by another for logical reasons and a contextual synonym is selected; 6) sometimes it is necessary to resort to functional substitutions. Therefore, in order to choose the most optimal way of translating industry terms, it is necessary to take into account not only the standard requirements for the term, but also the influence of certain linguistic trends and extralinguistic factors. The situation when there is an unambiguous and officially fixed equivalent of a translation unit in the translation language obviously does not cause certain problems in the process of their reproduction. Whereas in the second situation, due to the lack of a generally accepted equivalent, certain difficulties arise. We highlight the following possible ways of translating legal terms: transliteration or transcription with a brief interpretation of the term; tracing (if the term appeared in the language through semantic transfer); withdrawal; descriptive translation; modulation, in which the original word or phrase is replaced by another for logical reasons and a contextual synonym is selected; functional substitutions.

List of literature

english-language legal translation term

1. Andru St., History J. Encyclopedrn of Transition Studies. London & New York: Routledge, 2008. P. 133-136.

2. Bаlonevа O.O. Specific Feаtures of English Scientific аnd Techn^l Literature Translation. Zhitomir: Zhitomir State University, 2004. 120 p.

3. Baron N.C. Always on: language in an online and mobile world. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. 304 p.

4. Brown H.D. Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. Beijing: Teaching and Research Press, 2005. 118 p.

5. Causes and Tendencies of English Abbreviations. URL: http://gendocs.ru/v12499/causes_and_tendencies_of_english_abbreviations.

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