Law, language and translation

STTJ
Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
 Premise
“the relation between language and the law is so
intimate that it is not farfetched to say that law is
essentially language”
(E. Rotman, “The Inherent Problems of Legal
Translation: Theoretical Aspects” 1995:187)

Communication systems
Normative
Interacting
 Culture-bound
“Whereas law as an abstract concept is universal, legal
systems are peculiar to the societies in which they have
been formulated” (Cao 2010:192)

“Each legal language is the product of a special history

and culture” (Cao 2010:192)
→
“legal translation is distinguished from other types of
technical translation* that convey universal
information” (Cao 2010:192)
 Focus on translation
Interlinguistic, intralinguistic, intersemiotic (R. Jackobson)
+
intrasemiotic

Translation as a linguistic and cultural process and product

Translated language vs. non-translated language:

Translationese:
– explicitation
– simplification and disambiguation
– normalisation/conservatism
– levelling out
(Mona Baker 1996:180-185)
 Challenge

“legal translators must work not only between

two languages and two cultures but between
legal systems”

(C. Way, “The Challenges and Opportunities of Legal Translation

and Translator Training in the 21st Century” 2016:1012)
 Legal translation
Scholarship

 Susan Šarčević, New Approach to Legal

Translation (1997)
 Enrique Alcaraz Varó and Brian Hughes, Legal
Translation Explained (2002)
 Deborah Cao, Translating Law (2007)
 Legal translation
Definitions
unique, "of its/his/her/their
own kind, in a class by itself"
 “Legal translation is sui generis” (Cao 2010:192)

 legal translation is “an act of communication within the

mechanism of the law” (Šarčević 1997:55)

 “legal translation is the label given to the translation of not

only legislative texts and international treaties but court
documents and administrative, commercial, and financial
texts” (Way 2016:1013)
 Legal translation
Definitions
Handbook of Translation Studies, eds. Yves Gambier and Luc van
Doorslaer, 2010

• “a type of specialist or technical translation*, a translational

activity that involves language of and related to law and legal
process” (Cao 2010:191)

• “legal translation refers to the rendering of legal texts from

the Source Language (SL) into the Target Language (TL)” (Cao
2010:191)
 Classifications
According to subject matter:
o translating domestic statutes and international treaties
o translating private legal documents
o translating legal scholarly works
o translating case law

According to the status of the ST:

o translating enforceable law
o translating non-enforceable law

According to the purposes of the TT:

o normative purpose
o informative purpose
o general legal or judicial purpose
Fernando Prieto Ramos, “Implications of text categorisation for corpus-based legal
translation research”, 2019
 Legal translation
Source or target-focused?
Translating
law

legal texts
– Texts produced by experts of the field
– Texts used for legal purposes Translation as a process:
–Focus on the translator (and their interactions,
– Texts dealing with legal topics e.g. with tools);
–Conceptualization and evaluation of cognitive
processes;
–Improving the process of translation (e.g.
legal discourse efficiency);
–Using evidence to inform teaching and practice;
–Interdisciplinary nature with psychological focus
(e.g eye tracking).
Focus on process!
 STTJ
Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
 System of rules

 union of two types of rules:

◦ primary=regulate behaviour
◦ secondary=regulate rules
 Minimum content of natural law
 Monopoly on punishment

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ab7W0mRIwjA
1) rules that forbid or compel conduct against
sanctions;
2) rules to compensate those injured;
3) rules on making a will or a contract;
4) a system of courts to determine rules broken
and sanctions;
5) a body to make and amend or repeal rules.

(H.L.A. Hart, The Concept of Law)

 civil law
Roman law
codified into a system serving as primary source of law

 common law
judge-made law
precedents

 religious law
codes taught by religious traditions

 customary law
established patterns of behaviour
statutory law law written by a legislative body

vs
regulatory law codes established by executive bodies

vs
case law collection of past legal decisions

Practice:
Explore one of the legal systems of the world and prepare a
presentation on it.
Constitution
Set of fundamental rules and principles
Legislative enactment - statutes
legislative bodies with delegate/separate powers
Judicial decisions
interpretative/authoritative/binding
Treaties
apply to signatories
Other sources
Commentary, scholarly writings
ROMANIA

 Constitution
 Laws adopted by the Parliament:
constitutional laws, organic laws and ordinary laws
 Decrees of the Romanian President
 Government legislative acts:
orders, emergency orders, decisions
 Legislative acts issued by the central government administration:
ministerial orders, instructions and regulations
 Legislative acts issued by the local government administration:
County Councils, Local Councils, Bucharest General Council
 EU legislation:
regulations, directives
 International treaties
(e-justice.europa.eu)
Of Legal Language

Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
 Text categorisations
• “types of texts or genres” (Trosborg 1997a:20): situation of use
language of the law (legal documents)
language of the courtroom
language in textbooks
lawyers’ communication
people talking about the law

• “text categories” (Borja Albi 2000:84–134): discursive situation

prescriptive texts
judicial texts
reference works
scholarly texts
law application texts

• “system of legal genres” (Bhatia 2006:6–7): communicative purpose

primary genre (legislation)
secondary genres (e.g. judgments, cases)
enabling (pedagogic) genres, academic and professional
target genres (e.g. contracts)
correlation of
legal function,
text and genre
(Prieto Ramos)

• law-making
• monitoring of
compliance
• adjudication
• ideal link legal theme or function – legal
discourse features – legal context of use
BUT
legal language is “the language of and related to
law and legal process”, including “language of
the law, language about law, and language used
in other legal communicative situations” (Cao
2007:9)
 Study of legal language
Legal language means a language used by the persons connected to the legal profession. The language used by
the lawyer, jurist, and the legislative drafts man in their professional capacities. Law being a technical subject

•
speaks through its own register. Legal language has varies like local legal language and English.

external variation
• internal variation
• temporal variation
• cross-linguistic variation (Biel 2010:4)

Corpora based
Example:
Coulthard & Johnson 2007 on Legal English:
different distribution of grammatical items and lexical items
 Translationese
translation universals

• Mona Baker:
• explicitation,
• simplification and disambiguation
• normalisation/conservatism
• levelling out

• Andrew Chesterman:
• S-universals: lengthening of TTs compared to STs, interference,
standardisation, dialect normalisation, explicitation, sanitization,
reduction of repetition, etc.
• T-universals: simplification, conventionalisation, normalisation,
under-representation of TL-specific items, etc.
 Legal discourse
legal text / legal language / legal setting

No legal terms out of legal (con)texts

Legal discourse = a form of specialised discourse

whereby the power of the law is expressed via the
three legal genres (legislative, executive, judicial)
through a network of legal texts
(Cogeanu 2020:81)
TRANSLATION
STRATEGIES
Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
DEFINITION
• "the translator's tool-box" (Newmark, 1981)
"tools of the trade" (Chesterman, 1997)

types of text-linguistic behaviour that involve textual manipulations

• Characteristics:
goal-oriented
problem-centred
conscious
intersubjective existing between conscious minds; shared by more than one conscious mind.
not language-pair specific
Strategies or techniques?
Typology

• Strategies of comprehension
Translation brief
ST analysis

• Strategies of production
• Syntactic/grammatical strategies
• Semantic strategies
• Pragmatic strategies (cf. A. Chesterman, Memes of Translation)

overlapping
“Change something”
Syntactic strategies
• Literal translation
• Loan, calque
• Transposition
• Unit shift
• Word, phrase, clause, sentence structure change
• Cohesion change
• Level shift
• Scheme change

Examples?
Semantic strategies
• Modulation:
synonymy
antonymy
hyponymy
converses
abstraction
• Distribution change:
expansion
compression
• Emphasis change
• Paraphrase

Examples?
Pragmatic strategies
• Cultural filtering
naturalization, domestication or adaptation
exoticization, foreignization or estrangement
• Explicitness change:
explicitation
implicitation
• Information change:
addition
ommission
• Interpersonal change
• Partial translation
• Transediting

Examples?
 Practice: WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT)
PREAMBLE
THE CONTRACTING PARTIES,
DESIRING to develop and maintain the protection
of the rights of authors in their literary and artistic
works in a manner as effective and uniform as
possible,
RECOGNISING the need to introduce new
international rules and clarify the interpretation of
certain existing rules in order to provide adequate
solutions to the questions raised by new economic,
social, cultural and technological developments,
RECOGNISING the profound impact of the
development and convergence of information and
communication technologies on the creation and
use of literary and artistic works,
EMPHASISING the outstanding significance of
copyright protection as an incentive for literary and
artistic creation,
RECOGNISING the need to maintain a balance
between the rights of authors and the larger public
interest, particularly education, research and
access to information, as reflected in the Berne
Convention,
HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:
PREAMBUL
PĂRȚILE CONTRACTANTE,
DORIND să dezvolte și să asigure protecția
drepturilor autorilor asupra operelor literare și
artistice într-un mod cât mai eficientși mai uniform,
RECUNOSCÂND necesitatea de a institui noi
norme internaționale și de a clarifica interpretarea
anumitor reguli deja existentepentru a putea da
răspunsuri adecvate la chestiunile ridicate de
evoluțiaconstatată în domeniile economic, social,
cultural și tehnic,
RECUNOSCÂND că evoluția și convergența
tehnicilor informației și comunicării au un impact
considerabil asupra creației șifolosirii operelor
literare și artistice,
SUBLINIIND importanța excepțională pe care o
are protecția conferită dreptului de autor pentru
încurajarea creației literare șiartistice,
RECUNOSCÂND necesitatea de a menține un
echilibru între drepturile autorilor și interesul public
general, în special în domeniuleducației, cercetării
și accesului la informație, așa cum reiese din
prevederile Convenției de la Berna,
CONVIN DUPĂ CUM URMEAZĂ:
Article 1
Relation to the Berne Convention
1. This Treaty is a special agreement within
the meaning of Article 20 of the Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works, as regards Contracting Parties
that are countries of the Union established by
that Convention. This Treaty shall not have
any connection with treaties other than the
Berne Convention, nor shall it prejudice any
rights and obligations under any other treaties.
2. Nothing in this Treaty shall derogate from
existing obligations that Contracting Parties
have to each other under the Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works.
3. Hereinafter, ‘Berne Convention’ shall refer
to the Paris Act of July 24, 1971, of the Berne
Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works.
4. Contracting Parties shall comply with
Articles 1 to 21 and the Appendix of the Berne
Convention.
Articolul 1
Raporturi cu Convenția de la Berna
(1) Prezentul tratat reprezintă un acord special
în sensularticolului 20 din Convenția de la
Berna privind protecția operelorliterare și
artistice între părțile contractante care sunt țări
membreale Uniunii instituite prin această
convenție. Prezentul tratat nuare nici o
legătură cu alte tratate în afara Convenției de
la Berna șise aplică fără a aduce atingere
drepturilor și obligațiilor decurgânddin oricare
alt tratat.
(2) Nici o dispoziție a prezentului tratat nu
permite derogări dela obligațiile pe care le au
părțile contractante unele față de alteleîn
temeiul Convenției de la Berna privind
protecția operelorliterare și artistice.
(3) În prezentul tratat, prin „Convenția de la
Berna” se înțelegeActul de la Paris din 24 iulie
1971 al Convenției de la Berna pri-vind
protecția operelor literare și artistice.
(4) Părțile contractante trebuie să se
conformeze articolelor 1-21 și anexei la
Convenția de la Berna.
 Translating
legislation: resources
Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
 Drafting resources
Translation quality info sheets for contractors
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/about_the_european_c
ommission/contact/documents/translation-resources-quality-
info_en.pdf

How to write clearly

https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-
/publication/bb87884e-4cb6-4985-b796-
70784ee181ce/language-en

Claire's clear writing tips

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/clear_writing_tips_en.p
df
 Translation resources
Interinstitutional Style Guide — for Romanian
http://publications.europa.eu/code/ro/ro-000500.htm

Joint practical guide for persons involved in the drafting

of EU legislation — for Romanian
https://eur-
lex.europa.eu/content/techleg/KB0213228RON.pdf

Romanian resources: Romanian style guide

https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/styleguide_ro
manian_dgt_ro.pdf
Terminology and glossaries
O Normative Memory (EN-RO and FR-RO)
O Antidumping terminology (EN-RO)
O Combined nomenclature
O Statistical Yearbook
O Agriculture, forestry, fisheries, food (AGROVOC)
O Customs glossary
O Romanian National Bank glossary
O Common Agricultural Policy
O Environment glossary
O Railway glossary
O Romanian legislation:
O Legislative portal
O Legestart
O Legex
Models and templates

https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/romanian-
resources-legiswrite-models-word_en
 Legal databases and
dictionaries
O IATE: https://iate.europa.eu/home
O IER:
http://ier.gov.ro/traduceri/terminologie/
O TARIC codes
O EU Budget online
O Eurovoc
O RAMON
Dictionaries?
Examples
Dicţionar juridic Englez-Roman by Mona-Lisa Pucheanu,
All Beck Printing Press, Bucharest, 1999
Dictionar juridic E-R, R-E by Cecilia Voiculescu,
Niculescu Printing Press Bucharest, 2005
Dictionar juridic E-R, R-E by Onorina Grecu, C.H. Beck,
Bucuresti, 2008
Dictionar juridic E-R, R-E by Vladimir Hanga and Rodica
Calciu, Lumina Lex, Bucuresti, 1998
Translating contracts

Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
From evidentiary to authoritative
conducted so that evidence may be presented an An authoritative source is known to be reliable because
evidentiary hearing. its authority or authenticity is widely recognized.

 Private legal transactions

Testo
 oral → evidentiary → authoritative written text

 Enforceable contracts:
 Oral agreement
 Oral agreement with written record
 Integrated written agreement
 Structure and language

 Fixed structure
↑ formulas and templates
 Legalese
between conservatism and updating
Formal, archaic
Wordiness and redundancy
Impersonal and passive constructions
Long, complex sentences
Terminology
Supplementary reading:
http://www.languageandlaw.org/LEGALTEXT.HTM
Formulaic language
 set formulas
 structural elements
 standard clauses Equivalence

 headings
 style and syntax

Operative language Adequacy

 contract information
 Official translation
translating documents that serve as legally valid instruments
e.g. birth certificate, academic transcript, power of attorney, etc.

Requires:
Qualification: sworn/certified/registered translator
Formalisation: signature&stamp/certification(s)

Types:
 Certified translation
 Legalised translation
https://www.uno-traduceri.ro/noua-incheiere-de-legalizare-a-
traducerii.html
 Factors
Societal contexts
Participants: client, translator, notary, etc.
Professional practices and procedures
Cultural distance: terminology, text type
Source
Documents
Types
Functions
Translation skopos Target
Conditions
Legal norms
Ethical norms
Formal requirements
Contextual constraints
Translator as legilinguist
Example
• To be translated for equivalence of diploma in Canada
 Case study

Read the case study from Roberto Mayoral Asensio’s Translating

Official Documents (2003) – see Word document

What do you think was the translator’s response to the

suspicious translation commission?

Discuss the role and responsibility of the official

translator.
 Specific issues
Means of expression

Format and typing conventions

Belonging to the original vs. belonging to the translation
Converting complex formats into paragraph sequences
Text vs. image
Avoiding deception
Legibility
Understandability
Originality

Validity and execution of documents

Signature and seal
Certifying authorities
EU Translation sui generis

Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
The European Union
 “united in diversity”

 Founding treaties:
Maastricht Treaty
Treaty of Rome
+ protocols and declarations
Treaty of Lisbon, 2007
A monopoly is when a company has exclusive control over a good
or service in a particular market. Not all monopolies are illegal. But
 Organisation: monopolies are illegal if they are established or maintained through
improper conduct, such as exclusionary or predatory acts.
legislative power:
European Parliament co-decision
Council of the European Union
executive power:
European Commission monopoly on legislative initiative

https://europa.eu/european-union/index_en
... and translation
 Multilingualism principle
Council Regulation No 1 of 1958

 Institutionalised: directorates and services, centres

 Part of the legislative process:

 drafting stage
“rather than the final text being the responsibility of a single drafter, the
Commission’s proposal is the work of many hands, and minds”
(Robinson 2014:249)
 adoption and publication stage
in all the official languages of the EU
EU translation
activity supporting multilingualism as a founding principle of the EU (EU
institutions)

“translation rendered by and for European Union institutions” (Biel 2017:32)

 in-house
 outsourced

 “multi-faceted, broad and fuzzy category” (ibid.)

 Legal translation
 Institutional translation → sui generis
 Specialised translation

 comes to challenge fundamental concepts of translation studies

 a process without a product
 parallel texts
 single instrument
EU Translation: features

Oana Cogeanu-Haraga
Multilingualism
Principle of multilingualism →
Legal effect: parallel texts with equal value →
Practical obligation: equal treatment of all official languages
↓
 24 official languages, 552 language combinations
 4,300 translators and 800 interpreters permanent staff
 estimated cost of language services less than 1% of annual general budget
 Layered concept
Includes:
official languages of the EU
working languages of the EU
Does not include:
regional or minority languages
co-official languages
Plays down:
privileged status of procedural languages and/or pivot languages
Eurolanguage
↑
Reality: English as lingua franca
 main procedural language
 main pivot language for translation
 shift in the ownership of the language
 Eurocentric variety of English
↓
EuroEnglish:
employed by bilingual or trilingual speakers of different origins
formal
institutional setting
oral and written contexts
French-based multilingual speaking environment
Harmonisation and standardisation
strict control of EU texts and EU language
↓
Technological and linguistic resources to support the translation process
terminological resources: IATE, EuroVoc
document databases: EUR-Lex, Curia
styleguides: Interinstitutional Style Guide
CAT tools: SDL Trados Studio
translation memories and TM management system: EURAMIS
machine translation system: MT@EC
workflow and document management tools: Poetry, ManDesk, Tradesk

Management of translation process

 formalised into stages: decoding, transcoding, recoding
 several participants with distinct roles: manager, translator, reviser
Objective: ensuring accuracy and compliance of the translation with the conventions and
instructions for texts in the target language
Focus on quality
Drafting and translation go hand in hand
 common drafting guides and guidelines
 common and specific translation guidelines and documents

Quality assurance:
 the textual level
 the quality of processes
 staff selection and training
 provision of technical tools
 terminological resources
 documentation support

 Fitness for purpose principle

 Gradability of quality
 Categories of texts
link quality requirements and control to text clusters and consequent risks
From equivalence to adequacy
 Category A Legal documents: «Equivalence» means
the generality of content
legal effect and semantic closeness
legal accuracy, multilingual concordance of the original and the
translation. Adequacy
 Category B Policy and administrative documents: means the
correspondence of
specialised audience
translation as a process
clarity and consistency to these communicative
conditions.
 Category C: Information for the public:
large audience
fluency and naturalness

 Category D: Input:
internal use
accuracy
https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/about_the_european_commission/contact/documents/translation-
resources-quality-info_en.pdf