Throughout history, the use of translation methods has constituted a source of lots of debates; some scholars advocate literal translation, others advocate free translation. In legal translation which is a special and specialized area of translational activity (Cao, 2007), and where documents are characterized by brevity, economy, and neatness to prevent fraud, additions, omissions or alterations in the text (Crystal & Davy, 1969), mistakes or mistranslations can lead to disastrous repercussions. The present study deals primarily with the methods that translators of legal texts follow and adopt when rendering a legal document. A concise account of translation theories that have been adopted and are still being applied to legal translation is offered to attempt to show the main views towards the application of such translation theories to legal translation. Major methods often used in the translation of legal documents are then presented, discussing their validity to legal translation. This presentation includes literal translation, free translation, the functional approach to translation, transliteration & transcription, loan translation, adaptation, description by definitions, lexical expansion, and descriptive substitution. The empirical part of this study is concerned with the analysis of a marriage contract translated from Arabic into English in an attempt to shed some light on the major methods adopted by the translator of this document and the reason behind using such methods.
Throughout history, the use of translation methods has constituted a source of lots of debates; some scholars advocate literal translation, others advocate free translation. In legal translation which is a special and specialized area of translational activity (Cao, 2007), and where documents are characterized by brevity, economy, and neatness to prevent fraud, additions, omissions or alterations in the text (Crystal & Davy, 1969), mistakes or mistranslations can lead to disastrous repercussions. The present study deals primarily with the methods that translators of legal texts follow and adopt when rendering a legal document. A concise account of translation theories that have been adopted and are still being applied to legal translation is offered to attempt to show the main views towards the application of such translation theories to legal translation. Major methods often used in the translation of legal documents are then presented, discussing their validity to legal translation. This presentation includes literal translation, free translation, the functional approach to translation, transliteration & transcription, loan translation, adaptation, description by definitions, lexical expansion, and descriptive substitution. The empirical part of this study is concerned with the analysis of a marriage contract translated from Arabic into English in an attempt to shed some light on the major methods adopted by the translator of this document and the reason behind using such methods.
Throughout history, Arab scholars have produced a number of important works in different fields, which helped boost human civilization. This was achieved thanks to the utmost efforts made by a panel of prominent translators working in Bait Al-Hikma (Lit. House of Wisdom) in Baghdad. These translators transmitted Greek, Persian and Indian works into Arabic during the ‘Golden Arabic Era of translation’ which goes back to the Abbassid Caliphate (750 CE- 1258 CE). Likewise, translation movement in Al-Andalus took its systematic and intensive shape at the beginning of 12th century CE with the establishment of Toledo School of Translators in the city of Toledo. However, translations produced in Al-Andalus were chiefly rendered from Arabic into Latin and Old Spanish, mainly by non-Arab translators. The present paper explores the schools of translation in Baghdad and Toledo and the main strategies or methods used by each of these schools. This overview will demonstrate the importance of taking into consideration Arabs’ translation theorization in line with western theories of translation. The paper also reveals that Arab translators were not mere transmitters of Greek philosophy and ancient knowledge, but great thinkers who adapted Greek, Indian and Persian ideas to their own thought.
The fact that certain systemic differences exist between languages means that each language possesses a set of natural ways of expression specific to it, and ones that may sound odd in other languages. In other words, what is called ‘the genius’ of a language implies the existence of different ways of seeing and describing the world. Findings from comparative linguistics assert that languages ‘behave’ differently in manners revealing distinct mental pictures of the world events they describe. Naturalness is a central principle relating to proper language use and currency of usage from the perspectives of native users. This paper reviews the systemic differences between French and English and looks into the ways translators ensure naturalness by means of a strategy of equivalence in difference. A sign of success is the degree to which the translator manages to ‘free himself from the interference of the foreign language’. The corpus investigated consists of random samples of parallel excerpts from two francophone Maghrebian novels and their translations into English.
<em>Style is every literary author’s identity marker. No translation can ever claim success if it does not reflect the marked stylistic features of the original. This paper assesses the English translation of Tunisian Mustapha Tlili’s novel Lion Mountain in terms of its reproduction of the spirit of the source text, that is the totality of effects generated by the author’s stylistic manners. A cognitive basis to assessment means that the author’s style is a direct expression of his state of mind, his attitudes and beliefs. This model, inspired by the work of Chinese translator and theorist Jin Di (2003), uses a hermeneutic four-stage analysis of literary texts (i.e. penetration, acquisition, transition and presentation), that makes it possible to deal in a rather systematic manner with every aspect of the literary text, namely its spirit, substance, overtone, flavor and imagery. The assessment will demonstrate how translating successes or failures result directly from successes or failures in applying one or more of these hermeneutics-inspired four stages. </em>
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