Between specialised texts and institutional contexts – Competence and choice in legal translation

Abstract

Whereas legal translation was, for a long time, viewed mainly as a way to enable communication between neatly delimited legal orders, the focus of attention has moved to the production of multilingual law in a legal world characterised by multiple interrelated levels. In this context, legal communication -which has to meet the needs of experts and respect the rights of citizens -is the result of complex interlingual processes involving, but not limited to, translation. The legal field, with its practical and theoretical issues, should therefore prove particularly relevant to the perspective of Translation and Translanguaging in Multilingual Contexts.The codrafting procedures and interdisciplinary professional profiles that have been developed in officially multilingual countries have led to the questioning, starting from the 1970s, of traditional notions of text and translation. Today, factors such as the harmonisation of law, EU multilingualism and international standards for linguistic rights are turning some peripheral questions into central issues, with epistemological implications for both law and translation studies (Glanert 2014). Academic research on legal translation has gained autonomy from research on specialised translation in general. It attempts to explore, among other questions, the influence and variability of institutional parameters, particularly as regards the intricate terminological problems that are characteristic of the field. This focus on institutional context is reflected, for instance, in recent collective volumes (see Tiersma and Solan 2012, and Cheng, Sin and Wagner 2014).Since the practice of translation contributes to shaping the evolution of legal languages, systems and cultures, it is essential for translator training to look into how translation competence can be adequately defined and developed in the legal field (see Monzó Nebot 2015). One of the key features of this competence lies in