CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

I have worked as a legal translator for more than three years at two law firms in Ho Chi Minh City
(HCMC) with different working styles and working environment. What I have experienced so far in
both the firms remains so interesting that I am motivated to conduct this study for the purpose of
exploring experiences of other legal translators working in this city and at the same time
considering translation training that the legal translators have received. In this Chapter, the legal
context of Vietnam, legal translation in HCMC, and translation education in Vietnam are issues to
be explored first, followed by the study’s problem, research questions, and the study’s significance.

1.1 Vietnamese Legal Context

1.1.1 The Emergence of Legal Translation in Vietnam

Successfully gaining independence from the United States of America (the U.S.) in 1975, the
Vietnamese government has used its best endeavors to re-build the country, including, among other
elements, promoting its integration into international markets through a restructuring process called
“Doi Moi” started in 1986 (Abbott, Bentzen & Tarp, 2007). Accordingly, one of Vietnam’s most
significant achievements for the nation’s development is its entry into the World Trade
Organization (WTO) as the 150th member on 11 January 2007. It is the negotiations process through
which major agreements were reached for the sake of Vietnam’s economy that required for a
considerable amount of Vietnamese legislation to be translated into other languages and vice versa
with English a primary language for international trade. Legal translation, therefore, emerged as an
essential course of action that helps speed up global integration, as a result of which demand for
skilled legal translators has risen dramatically. The sustainable existence of legal translation will
not be in doubt as long as Vietnam’s trade is further broadened.

1.1.2 Basic Structure of Vietnamese Legal System

Ruled by China during the eleven hundred years before 938 A.D and then by the French for about a
hundred years, Vietnam was unable to build its own legal system without being significantly
affected by its rulers’ ones. That is why the current Vietnamese legal system is largely “based on
the socialism legal theory and inherited from French civil law system” (Basic Structure of Vietnam
Legal System, Kenfox IP & Law Office, 2009); more precisely, Vietnam operates under Socialist

1
Law that communist states have used to run their countries with civil law system employed as a
foundation (Quigley, n.d.).

As “the highest organ of state power,” the National Assembly of Vietnam is a legislative body who
appoints the most important politicians, i.e. President, the Prime Minister, etc., and the 21-member
Government. This unicameral body is also liable for the law making activities, including drawing
up, adopting, and amending the Constitution and laws with assistance from committees,
subordinate bodies, ministries and ministerial-level agencies under its control (Basic Structure of
Vietnam Legal System, Kenfox IP & Law Office, 2009).

The present Constitution of Vietnam was adopted by the National Assembly in April, 1992, and
amended in 2001, under which are laws, ordinances, decrees, orders, decisions and other associated
legal documents that deal with various aspects of social life. Figure 1.1 below will help to visualize
the process of law making activities with specific bodies in charge.

Figure 1.1: The Diagram of Law Making Bodies and Legal System in Vietnam
(Source: Kenfox IP & Law Office, 2009, http://www.kenfoxlaw.com/resources/legal-topics/12958-basic-structure-of-
vietnam-legal-system.html)

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Above is merely a brief but quite a sufficient description of the present Vietnamese legal system
provided by Kenfox IP & Law Office based on which business or investment in Vietnam is
managed.

1.1.3 Legal Translation in HCMC

There exist two kinds of legal translators in HCMC legal context who have worked diligently to
protect their position in such a challenging and competitive sector: full-time and freelance
translators. More and more law companies are established in this dynamic city to satisfy hungers for
practical legal advice on cross-border transactions and where there is a law firm to be built, there is
a need for legal translator(s) to be employed. Subject to each firm’s operational scale, the firm will
determine whether it should hire a full-time legal translator or a project-based one from time to
time. This gives equal chances for both types of legal translators to survive this job as well as for
law companies or individual clients to run their business in a cost-effective manner. Regardless of
their form of employment, most legal translators working in HCMC are English majors in English
Translation and Interpretation, Pedagogy, or English for Specific Purposes with legal translation
knowledge mainly earned by way of on-the-job training and self-studying.

1.2 Overview of Translation Education in Vietnam

Translation has long been taught in institutions of higher education across Vietnam with textbooks
specifically designed to equip students with necessary translation and interpretation skills. Table 1.1
that follows is an example of typical textbooks utilized for translation training at certain institutions
nationwide.

Name of Textbook Name of Author Year of Name of

Publication University/College/Institution
Translation Theory 2002 Da Nang University; College of
Pedagogy
Unnaturalness in English – Le Phuong Lan 2006 Hanoi University
Vietnamese Translation:
Causes and Cures
Vietnamese – English MA. Nguyen Thanh 2009 Can Tho University
Translation Practice 2 Duc
(Thực hành Luyện dịch Việt-
Anh 2)
Translation 1, 2, 4, &5 Nguyen Van Tuan 2009 Hue University College of Foreign
Languages
Translation Psychology Nguyen Van Tuan 2009 Hue University College of Foreign
Languages
Translation and Interpretation Pham Thi Thanh 2010 Diplomatic Academy of Vietnam
Theory Huyen

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 A Translation Course in Nguyen Ngoc Tam 2011 Ton Duc Thang University
Business Translation
Vietnamese – English Minh Thu – Nguyen 2014 University of Social Sciences and
Translation Practice Hoa Humanities
(Luyện dịch Việt – Anh)

Table 1.1: Summary of Translation Training Textbooks

(Source: http://www.ebook.edu.vn/?page=1.5&tag=d%E1%BB%8Bch+thu%E1%BA%ADt&alltxt=Y)

It is shown through Table 1.1 that legal translation has remained being excluded from translation
training in Vietnam for years even though this 21st century has created enormous demands on such
area and its people. This training issue will be discussed in more detail in later chapters.

1.3 Statement of the Problem

Notwithstanding increasing demands on legal translation resulting from Vietnam’s accession into
international organizations over time, to my best knowledge and belief, HCMC has usually faced an
acute shortage of competent legal translators who own requisite skills and knowledge for the job.
Demand is exceeding supply when both universities and training centers in HCMC offering
translation training have not yet effectively trained and produced an elite group of translators
equipped with real-life practice as well as with helpful translation strategies to meet the current
market needs for legal translation. It is believed that the present translation syllabi applied in most
institutions in HCMC are hardly designed, evaluated and improved according to the social and
cultural development and market demands, let alone legal translation. Students of translation major
want ““practical training” whereas what they have actually received is nothing more but
“abstract education” (Szczyrbak 2008). Apart from universities’ academic translation training,
certain companies or centers such as INTERPROTRANS (a limited liability company), ILI
(International Language Institute), and so on, also give no room for legal translation to be taught
officially but other areas instead, e.g. economy, politics, etc., (Young Translators Club, n.d.).

1.4 Aim of the Study

It is the above problem that urges me to start this study to uncover the experiences of legal
translators in HCMC in the context of translation courses conducted in the city’s
universities/colleges to see if the courses meet the needs identified by the legal translators in
practice.

1.5 Research Questions:

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In order to ‘guide my boat’ to the right destination, I owe a duty to find a satisfactory answers to the
following Research Questions:

1. What are the experiences of legal translators in Ho Chi Minh City?

This main Research Question gives rise to a subsidiary question regarding the translation courses at
tertiary level which must also be answered:

2. Did translation courses at tertiary level in HCMC address the needs identified by the
legal translators in practiceDo translation courses in Ho Chi Minh City’s universities
address the needs identified by the legal translators in practice?
See my comments on page 16 in particular in relation to these questions and the previous
section. Comments on p6 are also relevant
1.6 Significance of the Study

In the case this study is successfully conducted, it will significantly contribute to legal translation
studies in HCMC by reason of the following:
1 – It unfolds tales of legal translators, particularly their translation education and experiences
accumulated in the course of their daily work.
2 – It investigates whether legal translation is taught; whether the training programs are a
combination of theory and practice that will allow students to hone their translation skills.
3 – It proposes effective approaches to teaching legal translation upon knowing the current
situation of legal translation training.
4 – It draws the attention of concerned people to the vital role of legal translation and of making
legal translation a compulsory subject in English language education to have more accurate and
perfect translated versions of legal issues and also to form elite teams of legal translators.

1.7 Limitations of the Study

This qualitative study is restricted to a limited number of participants within the region of HCMC
only. You also need to talk about the limited nature of your investigation of the courses As such, it
cannot be generalized across Vietnam but provides an example of the situation from which the
reader might draw their own comparisons. In addition, the researcher is incapable of closely
investigating translation courses currently conducted in HCMC’s institutions of higher education,
given limited access to the institutions and its translation syllabuses. Instead, the researcher
considers the translation courses received by all participants in the past to which she can have

5
access as well as taking a quick look at translation textbooks/materials that have been used for
translation training over time to provide an overview of what translation areas are being taught
while a detailed investigation thereof turns to be impossible. ThisThese restrictions, however, does
not matter much but rather paves the way for further studies on other aspects of the issuethe same
issue.

1.8 Outline of the Study

This study is composed of six chapters arranged in the following order:

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Chapter One briefly describes the Vietnamese legal system plus the reasons giving room for legal
translation to grow in Vietnam. The statement of the problem comes next, followed by the study’s
purposes and specific Research Questions. This chapter additionally states how significant this
study is to legal translation studies and limitations are presented lastly.

The literature associated with legal translation and translation training at tertiary level is reviewed
in Chapter Two to provide the reader with an understanding of the characteristics of legal
translation, difficulties and problems encountered, requirements to be met by legal translators and
the teaching of translation/legal translation.

Chapter Three deals with the Methodology selected to conduct this study, which is Narrative
Inquiry, accompanied by its data collection instruments: narrative interviews, legal instruments, and
translation training materials utilized at the participants’ universities in the past. do you actually
refer to these – do check – and then add some if necessary. I realise we don’t have a separate
section on this and I do think it might be better to make clear that you are only looking at the text
book index and university course outlines. Then you can just add a short section in your thematic
analysis chapter. You do not want to be accused of saying you are investigating courses when you
don’t do it properly. There just isn’t space to do it properly anyway so change any statements about
what you are actually going to do – and then just send me the changed bits to look at Data analysis
techniques and the research setting and participants will also be described.

Stories of Four Different Legal Translators working in HCMC, including mine, are unfolded in
Chapter Four in order for the audience to ‘sense’ how a legal translator survives his/her daily job as
well as how challenging and difficult such job could become. In other words, this Chapter Four is
where the interviewed legal translators share their stories that reflect their experiences in legal
translation.

The stories told in Chapter Four pave the way for Chapter Five to present a thematic analysis of
data and to discuss in more detail the findings generated from all the collected data. In this chapter,
the data will be analysed based on primary themes arising from the interview questions with
evidence drawn from the narratives as well as the other participants’ responses and also from the
theoretical framework presented in Chapter Two. In parallel with the analysis of any particular
theme, the related findings will also be discussed to create interconnections among the information
from the narrative interviews.

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Chapter Six serves as a conclusion of the entire study where answers to the Research Questions first
introduced in Chapter One are provided. Additionally, certain recommendations on legal translation
training are proposed to render legal translation more reachable and reasons for conducting further
research on legal translation are also included.

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 CHAPTER TWO

LITERATURE REVIEW

As mentioned in the Introductory Chapter, Vietnam’s joining WTO gave rise to legal translation,
which has generated high demand on legal translators in Vietnam in general and in HCMC in
particular. In his study titled Difficulties faced in Legal Document Translation, Sonawane (n.d.)
highlights a number of requirements for a legal translator to meet to survive legal translation in a
successful way. At first, a legal translator must be competent in three areas: “competency in the
target language’s particular writing style, familiarity with the pertinent terminology, and general
knowledge of the legal systems of the source and target languages” as word for word translation is
unacceptable in translating legal instruments (Ibid.). This requires a professional legal translator to
play various roles at the same time, “a detective, a legal scholar and a linguist,” who would conduct
a large amount of research to decode the source and write its actual meaning which will in no
circumstances deviate from the original text (Ibid.). Being knowledgeable of where the translation
will be used or to whom it is addressed is also required of a legal translator so that he/she could
choose the most appropriate approach in handling the document. In the case where the source text is
not well drafted, a legal translator plays a role here too in deciding whether to translate the text into
something as vague as the original one or make it meaningful, which could be the case but was
hindered by poor writing (Ibid.). A successful legal translator must further satisfy the requirements
of accuracy, confidentiality and punctuality (Translations Blog 2010). In support of the foregoing,
this Chapter provides a theoretical framework through a presentation of related literature focusing
on the following key issues: noticeable characteristics of legal translation; major difficulties and
problems faced by legal translators and an overview of translation teaching/training at tertiary
level.

2.1 Definition of Terms

2.1.1 Translation

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While a variety of definitions of the term Translation have been suggested, this present study will
use the definition suggested by Wilss (1982: 134) who saw it as “a transfer process which aims at
the transformation of a written Source Language text into an optimally equivalent Target Language
text, and which requires the syntactic, the semantic and the pragmatic understanding and analytical
processing of the Source Language text.”

2.1.2 Legal Translation

Generally, Legal Translation is a law-based translation process involving the translation of legal
texts used in different legal settings (Al-Nakhalah 2013: 167). According to Šarčević (1997: 13),
Legal Translation is not merely translating from the source language (i.e. the text before translating
where the processes of reading comprehension, analysis and researching are carried out” (Abdellah
2004: 25)) into the target language (i.e. the text after translation where the processes of composing,
rephrasing and editing are carried out (Abdellah 2004: 25)) but is also “a translation from one legal
system into another – from the source legal system into the target legal system.”

2.1.3 Legal Text/Legal Document

Harvey (2002), by summarizing related theories, introduces a more inclusive definition of a Legal
Text as follows: “documents which are, or may become, part of the judicial process: for instance,
contracts, wills, court documents, witness statements and expert reports, which are “bread and
butter” activities for lawyers and legal translators.”

2.2 Characteristics of Legal Translation

Legal translation has certain noteworthy features. These are elaborated in the following sections.

2.2.1 Legal Discourse

Matijašević (2013: 120) contends that legal discourse owns a number of interesting features, as
revealed by numerous studies, and one of its distinctive features is “the simultaneous need for high
terminological precision and ambiguity,” which means ambiguity is sometimes created on purpose.
The ambiguous feature of legal language is also confirmed by a number of researchers, i.e. Aimar et
al (2001: 195), who found that legal texts are typically “filled with ambiguous rules and malleable
language which can be mined and interpreted in support of a variety of judicial decisions.” In
Posner’s (1988: 240-2) and Jolicoeur’s (2000) opinion, the legal text in this respect can be
compared with the literary text where ambiguity is not considered a defect but as an inherent

10
characteristic to be preserved in translation. According to Harvey (2002: 182), legal translators
should play a more proactive role, rather than purely a “text producer” to decide if deliberate
ambiguity should be retained.

In respect of morphosyntactic level of discourse, the model verb “shall” is specially used in a large
amount to express an obligation, rather than expressing future time as its common function to
secure legal effect that legal texts are supposed to have (Matijašević 2013: 120). To take one
example, the following sentence in a Guarantee describes an obligation with the use of the model
verb “shall”: “Any communication to be made under or in connection with the Finance Documents
shall be made in writing”; that is to say any notice to be made must be made in written form;
otherwise, it will be deemed invalid.

Very long and complex sentences partly indicate syntactic aspect of legal discourse. As Gustafsson
discovered in 1975, fifty five (55) is the average number of words per sentence in legal texts which
doubles those of natural sciences and eight times more than that of spoken English (as cited in Gotti
2005). Concerning the level of embedding, Hiltunen’s research carried out in 1984 suggested that
the average embedding level in legal discourse is 3.09, compared to 2 in other ESP discourses as
noted by Ellegard in 1978 (as cited in Gotti 2005).

Gotti also adds other typical features of legal discourse such as repetitively used expressions and
preferentially applied complex conjunctions, as derived from his 2005’s study on specialized
discourse.

2.2.2 Fidelity

Given the principle of fidelity, whether fidelity to the “letter” outweighs fidelity to the “spirit” or
vice versa in legal translation has been a matter for debate over time, dating back to the days of the
Roman Empire when formal correspondence between source and target text was decreed to be vital
to preserve the meaning of both Biblical and legal documents (Gémar 1995a: 26-30; Šarčević 1997:
23-48, as cited in Harvey 2002: 180). Today, legal translation specialists define fidelity in a broader
sense as “achieving an equivalent impact on the target reader, which may justify substantial changes
to the original text to respect the stylistic conventions of the target legal culture” (Harvey 2002:
180). In Kasirer’s view (2000: 57-59), the notion of fidelity demonstrates the positivist tradition in
legal interpretation with a belief that the meaning of a legal text is “declared”, rather than being
construed or created, by the person who interprets it.

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2.3 Difficulties and Problems Encountered in Legal Translation

Specialized translation poses certain problems and difficulties and legal translation is absolutely not
an exception with its typical challenges. This is primarily because legal systems vary from one
country to another. What follows below is a detailed description of key difficulties and problems
encountered in translating legal documents with specific illustrations.

2.3.1 Terminology

Terminological equivalence is a problem of “keen interest”, having regarded the major problems
posed by legal translation (Capellas-Espuny 1999: 21). The problems generated by “the absence of
equivalents” are ones that have frightened off legal translators at all times, and yet it is impossible
to wipe them out. In fact, the main reason why terminology has become a heavy burden to most
legal translators may be attributable to the diversity of legal systems as “a particular concept in a
legal system may have no counterpart in other systems” and the lack of exact terminological
equivalents in different legal systems may be deemed the cause of ambiguities, confusion and
miscomprehension of all types (Ibid., p. 22). The primary practical difficulty faced in legal
translation, therefore, is to decide whether a concept is similar or different in two languages, given
the consequences which follow (Ibid., p. 22). Šarčević (1997: 22) confirmed the predominance of
terminology by arguing that “Regardless of the type of text involved, all legal translators must deal
with the problem of terminological incongruency”. She additionally views that translating the
source legal system into the target legal system means “selecting terminology that will achieve the
desired results…” (22).

To take a few examples, under Vietnamese law there is no Vietnamese equivalents of these two
English legal terminologies “liquidated damages” and “consideration” which are defined in a legal
sense as “a sum of money (agreed-to and written into a contract) specified as the total amount of
compensation an aggrieved party should get, if the other party breaches certain part(s) of the
contract” (BusinessDictionary.com) and “something of value given by both parties to a contract that
induces them to enter into the agreement to exchange mutual performances” (The
FreeDictionary.com), respectively. In dealing with such terms in any legal document, what a legal
translator should do is not trying to find precise equivalents in the target language but rather
providing the most corresponding expressions in the target language, Vietnamese in this case, that
best preserve legal effect of the terms.

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According to Al-Nakhalah (2013: 174), Latinisms (Latin-originated terms) is another noticeable
feature once English legal lexicon is being discussed, which leaves legal translators in trouble
sometimes. A large amount of Latin terms are used quite frequently in legal documents. Table 2.1
below introduces a number of popular Latin terms that could be easily found in certain legal texts:

Term or Phrase Literal Translation Definition and Use Example

Equal in all respects, at the
same pace or rate, in the same
pari passu Ranking equally degree or proportion, or
enjoying the same rights
without bias or preference.
A caution to a reader when
using one example to illustrate
a related but slightly different
Having changed [the
mutatis situation. The caution is that
things that] needed to
mutandis the reader must adapt the
be changed
example to change what is
needed for it to apply to the
new situation.
pro forma As a matter of form Things done as formalities.
The Guarantor must ensure that its
payment obligations under this
Agreement and any Finance
Document to which it is a party at all
times rank at least pari passu with
the claims of all unsecured and
unsubordinated creditors.
The changes proposed for the first
contract apply mutatis mutandis to
all other contracts.
Audits, financial accountings and pro
forma budgets are merely
informative measures.

Table 2.1: Illustrations of Latin terms

(Source: List of Legal Latin Terms, Wikipedia).

Alcaraz and Brian (2002: 5) link the existence of Latin terms to a number of reasons, two of which
is that English law was influenced by Latin when the Roman church stretched its power over
Europe at that time and that Latin language was broadly used throughout Europe as a language of
learning and literature for centuries.

To put it in a nutshell, seeking for terminological equivalents is undeniably a painful process that all
legal translators experience in translating legal documents; nonetheless, other apparent difficulties
generated from legal translation must not be ignored.

2.3.2 Grammatical Elements

Successful translation depends a great deal on grammar knowledge that a translator possesses and it
is also true to legal translation in which great accuracy is desperately required as no dictionary can
be of help in assisting the translator to choose the grammatical item that suits best the given context.
For this reason, linguistic devices-oriented studies that examine how phrases, sentences and
paragraphs are linked together to form cohesive units of meaning is considered as crucial as
researching the terminology of a particular field (Selmi and Trouille, n.d.). In view of the fact that

13
grammatical structure partly conveys the meaning of a text, developing a feel for the right
grammatical elements (Ibid.), besides acquiring knowledge of terminology, has become integral to
the professional development process of all legal translators. In reality, many legal translators find it
more difficult to do their job due to their inadequate knowledge of grammar as evidenced below.

Altay (2002) perceives the application of unusual sentence structure in the English legal language
one of the most basic grammatical issues confronted by legal translators. Old-fashioned
subjunctives, i.e. “let” or “may”, are blamed for giving rise to such problem (Altay 2002) while
they should have been stopped being used in modern English, as suggested by Tiersma (1999: 93).
The following phrase frequently used at the beginning of a Power of Attorney “Know all men by
these presents” is definitely an uncommon sentence structure (Altay 2002) among plenty of other
odd grammatical structures that could be found in legal documents. Altay (2002) additionally gives
another example which is the case of the “British enactment clause” as presented below:

Be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of
the Lords Spiritual and Temporal, and Commons, in this present Parliament assembled, and

by the authority of the same….

(Tiersma 1999: 93)

This illustrative clause demonstrates, in addition to the subjunctive, several common features
existing in legal English: French-style word order (Lords Spiritual and Temporal), formal language
(Queen’s most Excellent Majesty), unusual word order (in Parliament assembled), and conjoined
phrases (by and with, advice and consent) (Tiersma 1999: 93), all of which remain very challenging
to legal translators.

In concluding this Section that discusses problems and difficulties arising out of or in connection
with legal translation, I would like to quote Altay (2002) as saying that “While lawyers cannot
expect translators to produce parallel texts that are identical in meaning, they do expect them to
produce parallel texts that are identical in their legal effect.” Having considered such challenges as
above mentioned, it will be a mission impossible for legal translators to produce completely
identical texts in two languages but instead their main duty should be to create a text reflecting the
same legal effect in practice.

2.4 Overview of Translation Training

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Translation trainers/teachers seem to agree that there exists a difference between “translation in
foreign-language teaching” and “translation teaching for professional purposes” (Goussard-Kunz
2009: 16). While the former is merely a means to facilitate learners in understanding a text or to test
certain capabilities, i.e. grammar and vocabulary, in the foreign language, the latter is indeed a skill
to be acquired on the basis of L1 and L2 proficiency (Nord 1991a: 140) (as quoted in
Goussard_Kunz 2009: 17). Accordingly, translation learners were once trained to achieve
completely different training objectives as afore-said and those who were trained to reach the
former goal were not adequately aware of “translational problems” as they were not given authentic
texts to translate and “translation takes place in a vacuum” with no “real communicative function”
(Krings, as quoted in Menck 1991: 151). Hӧnig and Kussmaul (as quoted in Menck 1991: 142)
summarize the problem as follows:

Students translate a text they do not understand for an addressee they do not know. And the
product of their efforts is often marked by a teacher who does not have any practical
experience as a translator nor any theoretical knowledge in the field of translation studies.

With the primary focus on legal translation, this present study will not discuss in detail the first
mentioned training objective, but explore “translation teaching for professional purposes” literature.

Once legal translation-targeted training is examined under a microscope, a question is raised as to

what type of approach should be employed. According to Manganaras (n.d.), in outlining “the
educational policy for legal translation”, it is imperative to take into account not only the
contribution of law and language but also other economic and professional factors. Selcen and
Eryatmaz (2014: 71) take the view that Law as a discipline somehow covers all other disciplines
under its umbrella and also gives room for translation in the field to grow, owing to which a
translation student with no knowledge of legal translation would not be able to “provide an insight
in other courses and in his/her professional life” as well, adding that all translation processes are
more or less connected with legal field. Accordingly, Selcen and Eryatmaz (2014: 71) suggest to
“distill a functioning approach” as an extension of a key concept in theories relevant to translation,
“function”, for legal translation training. Taking legal translation courses carried out in Yaşar
University where the two researchers are working as an example, an “Introduction to Legal
Translation” course is constructed to help students accumulate knowledge on the field as well as to
provide insight about the notion of legal systems. The course is designed spiraling around a central
motif which is function, a part of which is to form basic knowledge of general and special legal
systems (Ibid., 72).

15
The “Skopos” theory would help to provide a clearer understanding of the so-called functionalist
approach to teaching translation, as Vermeer describes below:

Functionalist approach means that, whenever the “customer (auftraggeber)” “orders” or

“gives” a job (in auftrag geben), he has an aim and a target. Translation is expected to serve
the target culture, and naturally to target audience. The best possible translation is

determined by the norms during the process (Vermeer 2008: 4).

Each text is produced for a given purpose and should serve this purpose. The Skopos rule
thus reads as follows: translate/interpret/speak/write in a way that enables your
text/translation to function in the situation in which it is used and with people who want to

use it and precisely in the way they want it to function (in Nord 2007: 29).

To sum up, it is believed that the functional approach is useful in translation training thanks to its
prominent strengths that help better prepare learners for “real-life translation situations” (Nord
1994a: 66). In Nord’s (1997: 117) opinion, this approach “facilitated a more profession-and
practice-oriented translator training and permitted the inclusion of a wide variety of activities
professional translators are asked to perform.” He additionally argues the functional approach is
consistent in that it can be applied to both literary and non-literary translation and utilized for any
type of text and language and cultural combination; this, therefore, renders the training of
translators “more rational, economical and independent of linguistic and cultural peculiarities”
(Nord 1994a: 66). Although several trainee translators remain intuitively in taking translational
decisions, functional translation theories provide them with a theoretical framework based on which
the translator is able to justify certain choices over others rationally (Goussard_Kunz 2009: 27).

2.65 Empirical Research

In recent years, there has been an increasing amount of literature on translation/legal translation
and its related issues with such specific studies as summarized in Al-Nakhalah (2013: 168). In
particular, Ludmila Stern’s (2004) research examined difficulties experienced by court interpreters
and the strategies they employed in coping with legal deliberations at the International Criminal
tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) with problems generated by the use and transfer of
cognates, synonyms and neologisms in legal language emphasized. In 2008, Farhaty considered
legal translation in theory and practice by reviewing the history of legal translation in the Western
and Arabic tradition and discussing the most popular difficulties lie in legal translation with

16
particular examples from English/Arabic/English legal texts. Lucja Biel in the same year (2008)
studied terminology mining in a small way that is used by legal freelance translators in practice, and
recent developments in this field. A few years later, the research conducted by Asma Abd-Allah
Halahla in 2010 focused on problems encountered by translators in translating Islamic Religious
texts when English lacks the equivalents and translators are forced to interpret rather than
translating the texts in a way that the original spirit or beauty of the original text is guaranteed.
Bader S. Dweik and Mariam M. Abu Shakra (2011) investigated the most serious problems faced
by the translators when rendering cultural collocations in three religious texts such as the Holy
Quran, the Hadith and the Bible, the results of which revealed that lexical and semantic collocations
are ones that cause difficulties and translators of religious texts should be well aware of the nature
of lexical and metaphoric collocations and should always avoid literal translation by taking the
context into consideration.

2.76 Conclusion

Serving as a theoretical framework for the whole study, this Chapter Two discusses key issues
attached to legal translation: typical features which legal translation possesses; noticeable
problems and difficulties experienced by legal translators in doing their daily work and last but not
least, the tertiary-level training of translation/legal translation. Empirical studies are also presented
to disclose what have been discovered in this field with clear findings. This chapter additionally acts
as a base for me as the researcher to shape the Methodological Chapter following next.

17
 CHAPTER THREE

METHODOLOGY

Narrative is about understanding the complexities of experience, honoring the subtleties of experience, and
understanding the dynamics between individual experience and contexts that shape experience. Narrative
reaches out to the past, is rooted in the present, and turns an eye to the future; narrative evolves with
changes and shifts in time, place, and interactions. Narrative, as both phenomenon and form of inquiry, is a
perspective that provides illuminating ways of viewing the world.
(Phillion 2002: 20)

In conducting any studies on experiences unfolded through stories, narrative inquiry, ‘the study of
experience as story’ (Clandinin and Connelly 2006: 477), seems to be the most appropriate research
methodology to be adopted for gaining insights into the real experiences of real people, especially
those for whom professional development is an issue that matters (Watts 2005). Given my main
purposes for which this study is formed, narrative inquiry fits best when I am desirous to learn more
about Vietnamese legal translators’ experiences through their employment at different law firms
based in HCMC. Indeed, this study is aimed at seeking answers to the Research Questions
presented below:.

The main Rrsesearch qQuestion is:

1. What are the experiences of legal translators in Ho Chi Minh City?

The A second, subsidiarysub- question is:

2. Did translation courses at tertiary level in HCMC address the needs identified by the
legal translators in practice?Do translation courses in Ho Chi Minh City’s universities
address the needs identified by the legal translators in practice?
Ie make it clear that the main focus is narratives from people. The second is an overview of what is
offered – not a detailed investigation
I employed narrative inquiry methodology to study the experiences of ten [10] translators coming
from a number of HCMC-based reputable law firms. This Chapter explains how narrative

18
interviews providing the main data source for the research were conducted; how such qualitative
data was analyzed; where I got access to the participants and who they are precisely with research
ethics guaranteed; and, last but not least, how my role as a researcher and also a translator with my
own stories to be told affected my interpretation of the data. To answer question 2 you need
documents from the universities – so explain what you used – and link back to explaining this is an
overview not a detailed investigation of course provision

3.1 Research Design

My research uses separate stories from eleven [11] legal translators through which the audience will
see a clearer picture of legal translation and its connected issues.

Clandinin and Connelly (2000) perceive that “Humans are storytelling organisms who, individually
and collectively, lead storied lives,” or for a more comprehensible expression, people’s lives
embrace stories (Ma and Ren 2011: 531). From Clandinin’s observation (2007: xi-xii, as cited in
Ma and Ren 2011: 531), narrative research methodology has widely been utilized in a number of
particular professions such as medicine, law, counseling, psychotherapy, teaching, and so on.
Similar to other types of research methodologies applied by social science researchers, narrative
inquiry ““inquires” into or ask questions” about specific aspects of life experience to acquire a
profound understanding thereof (Ma and Ren 2011: 531).

“Experience happens narratively. Narrative inquiry is a form of narrative experience. Therefore,

educational experiences should be studied narratively.”
(Clandinin and Connelly 2000: 19)
(as cited in Cavendish 2011: 44)

Examples of researchers who have used narrative inquiry in education are Bach (1998) whose
research is on curriculum; Huber and Whelan (2001) with studies in community; Craig (2001;
2003) in school reform; Bell (2002) in language learning; Phillion and He (in press) in language
teaching; Elbaz-Luwisch, Gudmundsdottir, and Moen (2002) and Fenton (2002) in teaching; and Li
(2002) and He (2003) with cross-cultural research, to name a few.

The rationale behind my choice of narrative inquiry mainly generates from me myself as a legal
translator who wishes to tell my own professional stories and, concurrently, from my intense
curiosity about experiences and professional lives of others doing the same kind of job at other law
firms in HCMC. Given the said objectives, stories, a specific form of narrative research, can, on one

19
hand, help me deeper understand myself in terms of my professional life and, on the other hand, can
open the way for me to uncover life experiences and viewpoints of others.

By reflecting my own and collecting narratives, mainly professional ones, from another ten [10]
translators, I would like to dig deeper into work life of people like me to see how they are getting
along at their firms; how their experiences accumulated through their daily work shape their
perception of legal translation; and what implications arise from those stories. All the narratives
that I collected were used as an avenue to examine real experiences of real translators in a very real
context that is legal context. In addition, how I and the others were trained to be legal translators
and what we have learnt to be competent enough for this occupation is also important to be
discussed.
3.2 Methods

Given the fact that the sources from which data is gathered will tell how valid and reliable such data
is, there comes a question to be answered by any researcher: “What kind, and how much data will
be collected?” (Hinchey 2008). As I stated previously, , the major data source for this research is
stories narrated by me and the other translators in narrative interviews, then come legal instruments
and translation training materials that act as subordinating sources.

3.2.1 Narrative Interviews

20
McNamara (1999) contends that interviews are really helpful in discovering “the story behind a
participant’s experiences” and in securing in-depth information relevant to the topic. Since what I
have yearned to do is to bring experiences of legal translators to light, narrative interview is
absolutely a choice to make and I chose semi-structured interview thanks to its prominent strengths.
In compliance with the principles to conduct a semi-structured interview, I did produce a list of
fixed pertinent questions with room for follow-up questions to be created when necessary by first
searching relevant literature (i.e. Frequently Asked Questions About Court and Legal Interpreting
and Translating; and Translator Interview Questions) to visualize what I should ask and then by
adapting the questions that I thought appropriate to my own situation. Eventually, I had a set of
twenty-two [22] questions covering significant aspects of legal translation, (see Appendix A). All
of the questions were open-ended and using common language of daily life for ease of
understanding as generally agreed by most qualitative researchers (Elliot 2005; Creswell 2007;
Sunstein & Chiseri-Strater 2007; Merriam 2009; Glesne 2011, as cited in Cavendish 2011: 46). As
per this research’s purposes, the questions used in my narrative interviews were formed to explore
three main types of information: (a) the translators’ past and present translation training; (b) the
translators’ experiences in legal translation; and (c) the translators’ attitudes towards legal
translation.

21
I contacted all ten [10] translators and arranged interviews at our best convenience. Subject to each
participant’s availability, I either arranged to meet them individually or kept in touch with them and
had the questions answered via email during the whole process. In fact, I tried to conduct as many
face-to-face interviews as possible to gain thorough information from the participants, but in two
cases the translators were too busy to meet so I undertook online interviews. Consent was obtained
from all the participants before interview sessions actually happened in a proper and ethical manner
as my proposal had been passed by the ethics board of Victoria University earlier (see Appendix B
and C for Consent and Information Form to Participants). With respect to face-to-face interviews, I
could meet eight [08] out of ten [10] translators personally to hear their stories. Each session lasted
about an hour but some extended longer than the scheduled time when the storytellers felt an
interest to share more stories. Many researchers agree that it is not easy to have participants share
their stories and experiences with them for this requires great trust and mutual respect (Fetterman
1998; Clandinin and Connelly 2000; Glesne 2011, as cited in Cavendish 2011: 47), hence the need
for a good rapport to be built among all involved. Accordingly, I tried to develop a friendly
relationship with all the interviewees in advance through conversations on the phone and by email
and when the moment came, I used my best endeavours to maintain all interview sessions in a cozy
and comfortable atmosphere and be a good listener who listened to their stories respectfully.
Furthermore, I was conscious of my role as a legal translator during the course of interviews to not
have any preconceived notions of what the translators would tell me or to avoid any leading
questions to get the answer I want. I also tried not to interrupt the interviewees to have narratives
naturally rise from our conversations, as Elliot (2005) recommended (as cited in Cavendish 2011:
46). Operated that way, all of the eight [08] individual interviews were successfully conducted
thanks to good rapport that I attempted to develop from the beginning. Additionally, my
understanding of the issues shared by the participants was a plus point when I could intake and
reflect rather precisely what the translators wanted to express, giving them a feeling that their
professional stories are properly and fully understood. Most of the individual interviews took place
in cafeterias at lunch time, after work or even at weekends when the parties involved were available
to meet and I always tried to arrange my time to meet their busy schedules in most cases. To ensure
the interviewees’ responses are captured in their own terms as well as to serve a detailed analysis of
data later on, the recording of conversations in all interview sessions is, to all intents and purposes,
mandatory (Interviewing in Qualitative Research, n.d., p. 317). Accordingly, I always asked the
participants if I could record our conversations before getting started and take note of what they said
so that I could promptly raise follow-up questions as necessary and minimize the risk of losing data.
Luckily, most of them nodded approval.

22
Regarding the other two [02] translators who could not offer me a direct talk, I worked with them
through email. First, I sent them an introductory email stating who I am, what my project is about,
and how they can help me to complete it. I certainly need their consent as well before proceeding
with the next step so I asked and they agreed to help by following my instructions, which is in fact a
matter of research ethics as above mentioned. Upon receipt of their agreement, I then sent them the
questions for them to insert their answers and send them back to me. A drawback of this ‘blind’
process is that the interviewees work independently while answering all the questions, which may
result in the possibility that some questions may not be understood correctly unless the interviewer
gives further explanations. To subdue this shortcoming, before sending out the list, I provided
detailed explanations to any questions therein that may cause misunderstanding and gave
illustrations when necessary to ensure the translators know exactly what I mean. Moreover, I noted
that they may need to modify their responses after I check and find that it is necessary to do so in
the case where their answers did not adequately cover the issues in question. This really happened
when I received the list back and saw that certain answers are too short or too general to reflect the
issue comprehensively, so I then asked them to further clarify or explain the point and re-send me
the revised list. That was how my online interviews were conducted and again I succeeded in
getting rather comprehensive replies with no face-to-face conversations taken place.

Table 3.1 below summarizes the entire interview process.

Participant Form of Number of Number Number of Hours of Total
Interview Face-to- of Online Recorded Interview of Interview
Face Interview Interview (approximately) Session
Interview
Translator 1 Face-to-face 1 N/A 1 35 minutes 1
Translator 2 Face-to-face 1 N/A 1 46 minutes 1
Translator 3 Face-to-face 1 N/A (refusing to 1 hour and a half 1
be recorded)
Translator 4 Online N/A 2 N/A N/A 2
Translator 5 Face-to-face 1 N/A 1 1 hour 1
Translator 6 Face-to-face 1 N/A 1 1 hour and a half 1
Translator 7 Face-to-face 1 N/A 1 50 minutes 1
Translator 8 Online N/A 2 N/A N/A 2
Translator 9 Face-to-face 1 N/A (refusing to 40 minutes 1
be recorded)
Translator 10 Face-to-face 1 N/A (refusing to 1 hour and 45 1
be recorded) minutes

23
 Table 3.1: Summary of Interview Process

The most remarkable achievement I have attained through the whole process of narrative interviews
is that my relationship with the translators survives the completion of my project. More particularly,
I still stay in touch with them via email, meet for lunch or a drink after work sometimes, or ask
them for advice on how to translate a strange or difficult term/phrase/sentence in a document I am
dealing with though we are working for different law firms, and they are always willing to help and
seek my advice in return.

3.2.2 Legal Instruments

Working in a law firm means dealing with legal instruments, or legal documents, on a daily basis.
Types of legal instruments vary from firm to firm, e.g. agreements, contracts, engagement letters,
notices, memoranda, and so on, subject to particular practice areas on which each law company
focuses. In fact, legal instruments are a specific tool that demonstrates and also helps evaluate a
legal translator’s performance, and, additionally, they are where professional stories of a legal
translator are revealed. For this reason, legal instruments were utilized as another source of data
besides narrative interviews for my research to illustrate any ideas, opinions or arguments arisen
from the translators’ stories. As a matter of confidentiality, I could not have many samples of legal
documents from other law firms so I will use mine for the most part and some other documents that
the participants used to illustrate their stories with equal legal effect.

3.2.3 Translation Training Materials

Translator training, apart from experiences of legal translators, is another issue of paramount
importance to this study. To have the training of the translators reflected through this study, it is
imperative for me to analyze materials applied at their universities when they were students, which
was my third data source. Except for the materials serving translation practice in the past, I will also
briefly considerlook at materials that are being applied at present in other universities to give some
limited indication of current translation training. The scope of this study does not allow for a more
detailed investigation of current courses.

3.3 Data Analysis

“Qualitative analysis transforms data into findings. No formula exists for that transformation. Guidance,
yes. But no recipe. Direction can and will be offered, but the final destination remains unique for each
inquirer, known only when – and if – arrived at.”

24
 (Michael Quinn Patton 2002: 432)
(as cited in Schutt 2012: 321)

As LeCompte (2010: 146) points out in her article titled “Analyzing Qualitative Data”, “big piles”
of collected data will be transformed into concrete findings that give descriptions and explanations
of, or prediction about, what the researcher has studied. This section is going to elaborate such
transformation process.

3.3.1 Coding

Defined as “a progressive process of sorting and defining and defining and sorting those scraps of
collected data…that are applicable to your research purpose” (Glesne 2011: 194, as cited in
Cavendish 2011: 54), coding is considered the first and perhaps the most critical process for the
analysis “gravitated towards” exploring the content of the qualitative data (Punch 2005: 193, as
cited in Gocer 2010: 201). As the coding process is deemed “the crux of qualitative analysis”
(Powell and Renner 2003: 2), I made every effort to complete the coding, or indexing, of the data as
satisfactorily as possible so that I could have clear and meaningful codes for each category at the
end.

First, I did a close reading of text to see what was happening therein and created codes based on
what the data actually showed. Lines of information were scanned through and I used gerunds to
describe any actions taken by participants in their stories and different kinds of phrases for other
‘action-free’ responses. For instance, I used such gerund phrases as ‘attending law school, self-
studying, making a glossary of legal terms’ to describe specific actions that certain translators have
taken to better support their job, or such noun phrases as ‘written communication, reading
comprehension, attention to details’ to reflect some skills and qualities that the participants think
necessary for a legal translator. Those are also some of my initial codes. Such initial coding process
continued until all raw text or information is assigned specific codes or labels.

25
The next stage is creating categories by looking for data informing the category from the codes
initially formed. In fact, most of my interview questions convey clear and specific themes, i.e. skills
and qualities of legal translator, translators’ translation training, problems and difficulties of legal
translation, to name a few, so that the translators can answer straight to the point, rather than
beating around the bush. Designed that way, the interview questions themselves provide, whether
directly or indirectly, certain categories or themes and what I have to do next is to search for
concrete segments of data that fit perfectly into each particular category, and then sub-categories
will be shaped accordingly.

An example of data categorization is shown in Table 3.2 below.

Question Categories Codes/Labels

Skills Language skills:
 Written communication
Sub-codes
 Reading comprehension
Analytical skills:
 Collecting information on the Internet
Sub-codes
 Analyzing collected information
What skills and qualities do you
need in your work as a legal
translator (Please specify why Qualities Attention to details
you need such skills/qualities)? Accuracy
Carefulness
Legal knowledge:
 Legal terminologies
 Legal systems of source Sub-codes
language and target language

26
 Table 3.2: Illustration of Data Categorization (Adapted from Powell and Renner 2003: 3)

The above Table 3.2 somewhat illustrates my data categorizing process. When a category emerges,
I will look for subtopics, comprising both contradictory and similar viewpoints as well as new
insights and to have arguments or explanations convincingly presented later on when I discuss my
findings, I also search for appropriate quotes from the participants’ responses that communicate the
essence of a theme or a category. It should be noted that some questions (i.e. Questions 03, 04, 05,
06, 07, 08, and 09) merely address one major theme, translators’ training, thus it is possible that
one segment of text may be put into more than one category if it fits other categories as well.

3.3.2 Narratives

In answering my questions in the interviews, the translators told their stories. In particular, once
they wanted to give as specific answers as possible, they told stories; once they wanted to explain a
point they were trying to say, they told stories; or once they wanted to express their own thinking
about a particular matter in question, they told stories. To take one example, when the following
question was raised: “In your experience, have you ever come across a case that was appealed
because of a translator issue?”, a male experienced translator told me a specific story about his
junior teammate, i.e. how the case occurred and how he dealt with the client’s complaint against his
teammate in the capacity of a senior translator. In summary, narratives emerged forthwith in the
course of interviews and what I, as an enquirer, should do in such process is to encourage the
participants to share their stories freely and comfortably.

To recapitulate briefly, once my qualitative data generated from ten [10] interviews’ transcripts was
ready for analysis stage, I first proceeded with the initial coding of such data by reading and re-
reading the text carefully, marking meaningful segments of text, and assigning respective codes or
labels. I continued this process until all segments of text are identified and coded, which stage is
known as ‘Open Coding’ (Strauss and Corbin 1990, as cited in Kawulich, n.d.). Next, I formed
categories based on certain themes appeared in most of my questions and fit the codes initially
constructed into respective categories and sub-categories were also shaped at the same time (Axial
Coding) (Kawulich, n.d). This coding process was conducted based on a list of classified data I had
prepared for such purpose.

27
In addition to narrative interviews that are my primary data source, legal instruments and translation
training materials are another two data sources that are deemed indispensable for my research. Such
kinds of data are used and analysed throughout this paper once there is a need to use legal
instruments for illustrative purposes or once translation training issues are considered.

3.4 Research Setting and Participants

3.4.1 Law Firms in HCMC

Narrative researchers often “describe in detail the setting or context in which the participant experiences the
central phenomenon”
(Creswell 2008: 522)

Creswell (2008: 522) suggests that the setting of a narrative research may comprise “the
participant’s workplace, home, social organization, or school. It is the place where “a story
physically occurs.”” As the principle focus of my study is on legal translators and their work life,
law firms are no doubt my research setting although I made no visit to any of them during my data
collecting phase, except for my own law firm. At present, there are several law firms, including
both local and foreign ones, operating proactively in HCMC and the translators I had approached
for interview come from eight [08] different law firms, including four [04] foreign and four [04]
local firms of various scales. I would like to note here that there are two translators working at the
same company; that is why there are only eight [08] firms while I interviewed ten [10] translators in
total. To sum up, I have nine [09] law firms, including my own one, in the list. Stories about these
law firms narrated by their insiders help me visualize to some extent how a law firm runs its
business and manage its staff.

3.4.2 Legal Translators

28
All ten [10] translators interviewed have practical experience in legal translation, ranging from at
least two [02] years to fourteen [14] years max. Among the five ones coming from foreign law
firms, two are from a prestigious U.S law firm that has operated in Vietnam for around twenty [20]
years; two are from renowned law firms founded in France and one is from the largest law firm
established in Malaysia. The rest are working at some domestically founded law companies that are
also famous for their services. All of the translators have good command of English which is a
requisite for their job, whilst some of them are translators of distinction who demonstrate a vast
knowledge of a variety of areas and a rich vocabulary. With the aim of collecting diverse
experiences of legal translators, I made every effort to seek out translators with varied backgrounds
and experience, yet my limited social relationships hindered me from doing that. To have this
obstacle removed, I asked my friends who are lawyers to help introduce me to translator(s) they
know or asked the translators I already interviewed to recommend another or other ones that they
have connection. Finally, I had the required number of translators with valuable and diverse
information obtained from them thanks to their differing experiences in legal translation.

Information about ten [10] translators is briefly summarized in the following Table.

Years of
Experience in
Translator Educational Background Current Working Place
Legal
Translation
Translator 1 BA in English 5 Vietnamese Law Firm
Translator 2 BA in English 7 U.S Law Firm
LLB
Translator 3 BA in English 7 French Law Firm
BA in International
Business
LLB
Translator 4 BA in English 2 Vietnamese Law Firm
Translator 5 BA in English 4 Malaysian Law Firm
Translator 6 BA in English 6 Vietnamese Law Firm
Translator 7 BA in English 9 U.S Law Firm
LLB
Translator 8 BA in English 6 Vietnamese Law Firm
Translator 9 BA in English 14 French Law Firm
Translator 10 BA in English 7 Vietnamese Law Firm

29
 Table 3.3: Information of Participants

Since it is impossible for me to talk about all ten [10] translators individually in this limited study, I
will share four stories, mine and of another three translators from three different law firms. Stories
of the remaining translators will play a supporting role in evidencing facts or arguments developed
from the narratives of the four key translators in the thematic analysis chapter. For the translators’
own sake, I will not use their real names but rather coding them as Translator 1 (T1), Translator 2
(T2)… till Translator 10 (T10) throughout the paper. The three translators to be considered in detail
are T2, T3 and T10 who come from a U.S law firm, a French law firm, and a Vietnamese law firm,
respectively. Particulars and stories of these three translators and mine will be elaborated in Chapter
Four.

3.5 Cautions about Narrative Inquiry

In order to “safeguard” the integrity of studies conducted using narrative inquiry, narrative
researchers are highly recommended to identify and tell their own stories regarding “their own
backgrounds, intentions and purposes” for implementing the study (Clandinin and Connelly 2000:
93, as cited in Jervis 2009: 13). As a narrative inquiry researcher, I am no exception and I did
include my own narratives as a consequence. It is undeniable that inserting my own stories into the
study possibly gives rise to subjective points of view developed by me myself, and, therefore,
controlling my own “subjectivity or the effects of self” (Glesne 2011, as cited in Cavendish 2011:
63) and, accordingly, my “intersubjectivity” (Cavendish 2011: 63) in my research becomes vital.
This means I have to be cognizant of both my own bias and those of the participants involved and
how our interactions affect the research process and data (Ibid.). Nonetheless, maintaining
objectivity is not an ultimate goal in carrying out my narrative research, but sharing and analyzing
my own experiences and stories matters. Several researchers agree that narrative research stresses
the importance of exploring the researcher’s own “personal narratives” (Clandinin and Connelly
2000; Phillion 2002; He 2002; Lyons and Labosky 2002, as cited in Cavendish 2011: 63). In brief,
it would be perhaps more relevant and useful to discuss the integrity, research ethics as well as the
“researcher reflexivity” in narrative research rather than objectivity (Jervis 2009: 13).

3.6 Conclusion

Resulting from my own preoccupation with legal translation and my insatiable curiosity about how
legal translators like me work and live, I insisted on conducting this study on experiences of legal

30
translators and narrative inquiry methodology perfectly suits my stated purposes. This chapter
furnishes the reader with information about my research methodology: research design, data
collection methods, data analysis, setting and recruitment of participants, and finally cautions
about narrative inquiry. The next chapter unfolds four stories - mine and of another three key
translators (T2, T3 and T10).

31
 CHAPTER FOUR

STORIES OF LEGAL TRANSLATORS

“At the heart of any story are the people and their lives.”

(Cavendish 2011: 1)

As elaborated in Chapter Three, I have been incredibly fortunate to be welcomed into stories of ten
[10] legal translators from eight [08] different law firms. All of them generously agreed to
participate in the project in spite of their heavy schedule. Before narrating their stories, though, it is
essential to share my own.

4.1 My Story

4.1.1 Educational Background

Following the completion of high school, I did English Language as my undergraduate degree at Ho
Chi Minh City Open University (HCMCOU) as English Language back then was the only major
offered by the University’s Faculty of Foreign Languages and I chose English Translation and
Interpretation to move forward. This was truly a momentous decision that shaped my entire life. I
enjoyed the course immensely and my passion for English urged me to study hard; my high final
grades demonstrate my constant efforts. Besides the University’s course, I also attended extra
classes in the evening in English Grammar at elementary to advanced level and in translation of
both the local and foreign press during years of university. For press-based translation training, I
learned to translate English articles in such various fields as economy, finance, environment, etc.,
into Vietnamese and translated Vietnamese brief news on a Vietnamese newspaper into English. It
was such extra translation training provided by a good teacher that helped to vastly improve my
translation skills. I graduated in 2006 as the second highest ranked student of the Faculty and as a
book translator since 2004 with some books published and sold at bookstores. Undoubtedly, this
significantly assisted my future career in translation.

32
4.1.2 A Professional Legal Translator

August, 2011
It was 6:00 am when I received a call from my former teacher who taught me English Translation
and Interpretation at university. In his capacity as chief legal translator at a Vietnamese law firm
back then, he was looking for a junior translator to support him in his daily work.I was thought to
be an appropriate candidate for the post even though I had never involved in legal translation
before. Truly, my life has changed since the call came.

September, 2011
I started my first day at my very first law firm on September 05 th, 2011 with no experience in legal
translation. That was why upon receiving my first translation task on the day, a look of panic
crossed my face. Several English words in the document were like strangers staring at me as I had
never seen them before and although I was familiar with some of those words, I could not
understand even a single sentence since the words convey totally different meanings in legal
context. To take one example, the following simple sentence did scare me when I first saw it: “The
Mortgagor enters into this Agreement in connection with the Onshore Facility Agreement (as
defined below).” First, I did not know certain words in the sentence, e.g. Mortgagor and Onshore
Facility Agreement. Second, from what I already knew about such words as enter into (take part
in), agreement (the state of sharing the same opinion or feeling), connection (link), and facilities
(buildings, services, equipment, etc. that are provided for a particular purpose), I believed I could
not apply such meanings as provided in parentheses to this context for they turned out to be
inappropriate or meaningless. I was even more frightened when I could not look up appropriate
meanings of the above words/phrases, e.g. Onshore Facility Agreement, in normal language
dictionaries. Hopelessly, I could not do anything but asking my superior for help and it was so
lucky that I have one. To help me familiarize myself with legal terminologies as well as legal
context, he sent me a glossary of terminologies that he had accumulated and updated on a regular
basis over years as a legal translator. He additionally sent me a Vietnamese template for the
document I was handling so that I could refer to it for the standard form of Vietnamese wording.
With great support from my superior, I could then translate the sentence in its legal sense, which
means The Mortgagor sign this Agreement/Contract connected with the Domestic Loan Agreement
(as defined below). In a word, I did experience legal translation first-hand in my first day at work,
through which I became more aware of how challenging my job was as well as how essential for me
to familiarize myself with legal context and terminologies as fast as I could. Thanks to the glossary

33
from my superior, high frequency of similar legal templates, and my huge efforts, I was able to do
my job more smoothly a month later, October 2011, once I was more acquainted with terminologies
frequently used in my firm and also the Vietnamese wording of a number of agreements/contracts.

October, 2011 to Present

My employment at my first law firm ended in August, 2013. I joined my second law firm a month
later, and have worked there since then. I have acquired considerable knowledge relevant to legal
industry and its belongings, but most importantly, my translation skills and other skills and
qualities, i.e. reading comprehension, writing skills, analytical skills, etc., as are essential for a legal
translator have been greatly developed during this period (particulars of which will be presented
with illustrations in Chapter Five). I always have a great deal to do to fulfill any translation tasks in
the most satisfactory manner, and it has been a difficult process to go through indeed. First, the
process of extensive search for terminologies opens up access to a variety of useful websites. This
has greatly supported my job as I could translate more smoothly once I fully grasped the meaning of
all terminologies and, in the meantime, my legal and background knowledge of other areas has also
been considerably broadened. Concerning problems that I have encountered in doing my job,
lengthy sentences with difficult structures, inter alia, still remain a horrible nightmare to me. The
following sentence is a good example of this:

“Negative pledge: The Guarantor will not, and will not permit any Significant Subsidiary to,
directly or indirectly, incur, assume or permit to exist any Lien of any nature whatsoever on any
of its assets or properties of any kind, whether owned on the date of this Agreement or
thereafter acquired, to secure any Relevant Indebtedness, except Permitted Liens, unless the
Guarantor’s obligations to the Finance Parties rights under [the Guarantee][the Finance
Documents] are secured equally and ratably with (or, if the obligation or liability to be secured
by such Lien is subordinated in right of payment to the Guarantor’s obligations under [the
Guarantee][the Finance Documents], prior to) the obligation or liability secured by such
Lien.”
(Quoted from a “Pledge Agreement”)

This lengthy sentence (115 words in total) reflects one of the most typical features of legal
instruments, the use of long sentences with high embedding level to have the drafter’s ideas fully
covered (see Section 2.2.1, Chapter Two for further details). It took me a lot of time to read, study,
and analyze the sentence over and over again before I could produce a satisfactory translation.

34
To make a brief summary of my story, I have been growing into my new role as a professional legal
translator over three years working in the field even though legal translation was of no interest to
me at all before I received my teacher’s call that day. I dare not say I am now a translator of
distinction, compared to other experienced and skilled legal translators I met. Nonetheless, I have
been trying my best to get my work done to the satisfaction of both the firm and clients and the fact
that I have outperformed my superior at the present firm demonstrates how hard I have tried to
survive legal translation over such three years. Furthermore, as an employee with an enquiring
mind, I have never stopped learning to be more and more confident and professional in the position
I am holding.

4.2 The Story of Translator 2

4.2.1 Educational Background

Translator 2 (T2) started her student life as an English major in 2005 at the Industrial University of
Ho Chi Minh City (the IUH) and graduated from the IUH in 2009 with a BA in English Translation
and Interpretation. She took a degree in Law at HCMULAW the same year and finished the course
in 2013. Now she is attending the Legal Practice Course at HCMC Judicial Academy as a requisite
requirement for those who want to become lawyers in accordance with the Vietnamese laws. Four
years younger than me, T2 owns two Bachelor Degrees though and will soon become a lawyer with
more opportunities to move farther in her professional career.

4.2.2 A Professional Legal Translator

Like me, T2 began her translation career when she was still an undergraduate. She worked as a part-
time translator for a Vietnamese law firm since 2007 to 2009 and was then promoted to a higher
position, Senior Translator, at the same firm in 2010 and continued holding this position till
December 2010. Her current working place is a prestigious international U.S law firm with offices
located worldwide and also considered one of the largest foreign law firms operating in Vietnam for
over 20 years with more than 100 employees. Joining her U.S law firm in 2011, she is currently a
legal translator-cum-paralegal whose main duties entail translating legal documents of various
kinds; being an interpreter on request; reviewing translated documents provided by clients; meeting
with clients upon emergence of any controversies over a particular translated document; drafting a
number of legal instruments such as power of attorney, service agreements, loan agreements, and
so on, on a case-by-case basis; summarising legal documents newly issued by the Vietnamese
Government or by any governmental authorities; and working with practice groups in the firm in

35
collecting comments on newly issued regulations. It is such wide range of tasks that has helped
sharpen her translation and other necessary skills, thanks to which she has been more and more
highly rated by her present colleagues and the firm’s partners. Apart from her full-time job, she has
also been a freelance translator since 2008 and has been involved in different projects of both small
and large scale. Apparently, she has devoted herself to her translation career and she has earned a
lot of knowledge and skills in return. Nonetheless, she honestly shared with me in our interview that
she will work much less when she plans to get married.

No matter how experienced and professional she is, T2 still ran into difficulties inherent in this type
of work during the course of her employment at her current firm. Specifically, she has had to work
to tight deadlines very frequently at the firm’s request or struggled to translate a document with
specialized terminologies or ambiguously worded paragraphs caused by the drafter’s repeated use
of the same words/terms with different meanings. Asked to give an illustration of the said problems,
T2 recalled a story as detailed below:

A month ago I was assigned to translate a 27-page Guarantee from English into Vietnamese and
as I rarely address such kind of document, it took me a few days to finish the translation since I
had to do an extensive search on the Internet for sections that were hard to understand. This
document is really a fair reflection of the so-called ‘ambiguously worded paragraph’ frequently
used in legal instruments. Given paragraphs with ambiguous wording, there is one in a Section
titled ‘Guarantee and Indemnity’ where the pronoun ‘it’ is used repeatedly but referring to
different subjects:

“The Guarantor irrevocably and unconditionally agrees with the Agent and each Lender
that if any obligation guaranteed by it is or becomes unenforceable, invalid or illegal, it
will, as an independent and primary obligation indemnify the Agent and/or each Lenders
immediately and on demand against any cost, loss or liability it incurs as a result of the
Borrower not paying any amount which would, but for such unenforceability, invalidity
or illegality, have been payable by it under any Finance Document on the date and by the
time when it would have been due. The amount payable by the Guarantor under this
indemnity will not exceed the amount it would have had to pay under this Clause if the
amount claimed had been recoverable on the basis of a guarantee.”
(Quoted from a “Guarantee”)

When I read the paragraph for the first time, I could not get its precise meaning right away so I
read it again and again with intense concentration on the pronoun ‘it,’ which is applied six
times, to identify the right subject to which the pronoun refers whenever it appears since I

36
 knew whether this paragraph will be accurately translated depends mainly on how to interpret
such pronoun. Eventually, I succeeded in matching each ‘it’ with its appropriate subject after
30 minutes reading extensively and carefully studying the paragraph and I was quite sure
about my interpretation. In fact, this pronoun refers to four totally different subjects.
Concretely, the first two ‘it’ refer to the Guarantor; the third ‘it’ refers to the Agent and/or
each Lender; the fourth ‘it’ refers to the Borrower; the fifth ‘it’ refers to the unpaid amount of
money; and the sixth ‘it’ refers back to the Guarantor.

Translator 2, Transcript, September, 2014

It is true that T2 is a skilled and experienced legal translator but still encountering new challenges
every working day. The better she deals with them, the more competent and professional she
becomes and to be a chief legal translator as well as an attorney at law is an ultimate goal she is
attempting to achieve in four or five years’ time from now.

4.3 The Story of Translator 3

4.3.1 Educational Background

Translator 3 (T3) was an English major at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and
Humanities (HCMUSSH) from 1995 to 1999. Also in this period, 1995 - 2000, he was a student
majoring in International Business at the Foreign Trade University (the FTU). In 2004, he decided
to earn his third degree in Law at Ho Chi Minh City University of Law (HCMULAW) to become a
professional lawyer and he graduated from HCMULAW in 2008 with a certificate of merit.
Possessing three Bachelor Degrees in his twenties was undoubtedly his notable educational
achievement.

4.3.2 A Professional Legal Translator

T3 commenced his translation career in 1998 as a part-time employee at an import-export company

with one of his main duties being translating documents and contracts. Then he worked for a
Vietnamese export and import bank as a full-time translator and interpreter in 2000. He continued
looking for other job opportunities to acquire knowledge of other areas in subsequent years from
2000 to 2007 at big foreign companies where he learned new knowledge of logistics services and
marine and fire insurance. Translation was never excluded from his main tasks. He chose legal
translation as his professional career since 2007 to date, and, with a wide knowledge of various
fields, he is such an excellent legal translator that has given a highly creditable performance at his
current firm. He is now working as an attorney at law and also the chief translator at an

37
international French law firm where his main duties are translating legal documents from English
into Vietnamese and vice versa as well as doing legal search and helping Vietnamese and foreign
lawyers in preparing legal instruments and answers to clients’ questions relating to legal issues.

During his employment at the current firm, T3 has dealt with different kinds of legal documents in
many practice areas such as corporate, banking, real estate, manufacturing and services and even
though he is a translator of distinction, he used to experience certain difficulties and problems that
almost all legal translators could face, e.g. lack of background knowledge of a particular field and
terminologies. The following story told by him illustrates one of these problems:

I was asked to translate a 120-page technical document in the mining sector. I had a look at it
and said that it was difficult to translate as this was a paper about the mining process which
contained a lot of technical terms. I discussed with a lawyer in charge of the file that we could
request the client to ask their engineers to do it and we would correct the English version or to
engage a translation company to do it. Unfortunately, the client did not have good English-
speaking engineers and want to keep the document confidential. Therefore, I had to be in
charge of the translation with support by other junior lawyers and I was responsible to combine
and review translated parts of other junior lawyers. This document was a real challenge to me. I
had to do a lot of research on the Internet and discussed with the client. There were some parts
in the document I did not understand so I translated them word by word and sent them to the
client for checking. Finally I finished the document. The client was an Asian company so their
English was not so good. I did not know whether my translated document was satisfactory or
not. I assumed that no adverse response on the translated document meant everything was good.
I have a good experience in this case that if I try my best to do something deemed impossible, I
will achieve a result which may not be satisfactory. However, I like the phrase “better than
nothing.”
Translator 3, Transcript, September, 2014

This example partially reveals real challenges facing legal translators . Working as legal translators,
it is inevitable for us to translate a document of a completely strange area that we have never
experienced before. As shown through the example, T3 had to handle a document in mining sector
while he is only familiar with other practice areas as listed above, which means he hardly had any
knowledge about the document he was coping with at the time. What he did was trying his best to
complete such a tough task, although the quality of the translated document was not guaranteed.
Obviously, lacking background knowledge of mining industry and of mining terminologies in both
English and Vietnamese really caused T3 intractable problems when his wide range of knowledge

38
became useless. The point is he cannot get rid of those repetitive problems as long as he works in
the field, and the only solution is to keep learning new knowledge and improving himself which is
what he has been doing since the date he chose to become a professional legal translator.

4.4 The Story of Translator 10

4.4.1 Educational Background

Translator 10 (T10) was admitted to the Faculty of Foreign Languages at Ton Duc Thang
University (TDTU) in 2001, majoring in English Language Pedagogy as he wished to be an English
teacher at the time. T10 was taught teaching methodologies for much of his 4-year course, but, in
the meantime, translation was also included in the entire training program as a compulsory subject
to equip students of English major with basic translation skills and knowledge. He graduated from
TDTU in 2005 and went into teaching right after that with no intention of being a translator, let
alone a legal translator as he is today.

4.4.2 A Professional Legal Translator

T10 had been in English teaching for three years before pursuing a professional career in legal
translation in 2007, which turned out to be his successful career advancement. He joined his first
and current law firm in 2007 and his excellent performance has earned him recognition as a
translator of distinction. As regards T10’s present working place, it has won renown as one of the
largest and most successful law firms founded in Vietnam and has been ranked among the 1st tier
law firms by Legal 500, Chambers and IFLR1000 in most of major practice areas for many
consecutive years. From an English teacher with no translation experience in his early stages, he is
now a skilled and experienced legal translator with seven years working in legal industry and
concurrently a treasure of his firm who has significantly contributed to the firm’s long-term success.
Interestingly, his present achievements in legal translation were mainly constituted by his huge
efforts and constant autonomous learning during these seven years.

With respect to difficulties and problems T10 has experienced in doing his job so far, limited
knowledge of other business sectors has given him a lot of trouble sometimes. To illustrate his
point, he told me a story about how he managed to translate a document regarding insurance
products and its marketing strategies which he admitted a tough task to fulfil, given his limited
knowledge of insurance and marketing industries. Below is one of the most difficult paragraphs to

39
cope with throughout the said document that took him a lot of time to search for relevant knowledge
and analyse the collected information to produce the most satisfactory translation.

“In the longer term, if the maturity of the Direct Distribution channel in Vietnam creates the
appropriate economic and commercial conditions, the Insurer will investigate the possibility of
establishing a Direct to Consumer offering. Direct to Consumer utilises advertising campaigns
through a variety of media, including television, billboard, print, radio, and social media. These
advertising campaigns generate inbound leads from Vietnamese consumers with no affinity
relationship and where the promotional materials are unsponsored and non-targeted. Inbound
leads will be converted to life insurance sales by tele-sales representatives or leads referred to
face-to-face channels.”

Translator 3, Transcript, September, 2014

The paragraph is about marketing strategies with specialized terms (e.g. Direct to Consumer;
inbound leads; affinity relationship; promotional materials) and T10 had to extensively read
marketing knowledge and also ask people of the field to get into the context so he could express the
meaning in its true sense. Like the others, T10 has tried to alleviate job-generated problems in his
own way and succeeded in doing this for years, rendering him a highly competitive legal translator.

4.5 Conclusion

Definitely, my own stories and those of the other three legal translators as above unfolded do not
paint the complete picture of legal translation, but rather giving a brief glimpse of the field through
which the audience can imagine how legal translators like us do our job with visible problems and
challenges. In other words, these stories are shared for illustrative purposes and serve as the basis
for my thematic analysis of data in the next chapter where central issues emerging from the data
provided by all the participants will be considered.

40
 CHAPTER FIVE

A THEMATIC ANALYSIS OF DATA AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS

This Chapter Five is where I will consider in detail the themes that have arisen from the data
gathered from ten [10] interviews. Similarities and discrepancies emerging from the participants’
responses and also what I myself have experienced as legal translator will be highlighted.
Simultaneously, findings will be summarized and backed up with examples from the data and
linked to the literature.

5.1 Skills and Qualities that are deemed essential for legal translators at all levels

Every occupation requires typical skills and qualities. When asked to name some important skills
and qualities regarded necessary for their daily work (Q2) 1, the participants gave diverse replies
which still have something in common.

Five out of ten interviewed translators (T2, T6, T7, T8, and T10) 2 agreed that reading
comprehension is the most important skill for legal translation, without which they find it
extremely hard to understand lengthy sentences with odd structures, let alone translating them.
Furthermore, the fact remains that legal instruments are of unreadable nature; legal translators,
therefore, will easily get lost or be distracted while reading these instruments unless they are patient
and pay much attention to details. In other words, a legal document, whether short or long, could
not be understood thoroughly if it is read for only one time without carefully studying every single
word and detail, failing which the translator cannot precisely translate what the text aims to express.
Following is an example taken from a Loan Agreement:

Restricted Party means a person that is: (i) listed on, or owned or controlled by a person listed
on, or acting on behalf of a person listed on, any Sanctions List; (ii) located in, incorporated
under the laws of, or owned or (directly or indirectly) controlled by, or acting on behalf of, a
person located in or organised under the laws of a country or territory that is the target of
country-wide or territory-wide Sanctions; or (iii) otherwise a target of Sanctions (target of
1
Q2: Question 2
2
T2, T6, T7…: Translator 2, Translator 6, Translator 7…

41
 Sanctions signifying a person with whom a US person or other national of a Sanctions
Authority would be prohibited or restricted by law from engaging in trade, business or other
activities).
(Quoted from a Loan Agreement)
(Translator 2, Transcript, September 2014)

This illustrated sentence is truly a very long one (115 words in total) with a high level of
embedding. The point is this is completely normal to legal instruments where lengthy sentences are
frequently used and the longer a sentence is, the higher the embedding level is, rendering it difficult
to be interpreted accurately if close reading is not properly done (see Section 2.2, Chapter Two, for
further details). Obviously, if the translator is not an attentive reader with good reading skills, it is
likely that he/she cannot understand the sentence correctly.

Writing skills are ranked second with consent from four [04] translators (T1, T2, T6, and T10),
reasoning that Vietnamese-English translation cannot be done successfully unless the translator is
good at writing skills as this may result in poor quality English versions. In this regard,
grammatical competence is deemed an integral part to such kinds of skills (T5, T6, T7, T8 and T10)
as without good grammar, a legal translator is unable to fulfil his/her task in both English-
Vietnamese and Vietnamese-English translation; specifically, the translator is unable to understand
English sentences with difficult structures unless he/she knows how to analyse such sentences
grammatically and also Vietnamese sentences may not be accurately translated into English if the
translator fails to employ correct grammar. For instance, the sentence in Vietnamese below was
translated differently by two legal translators, a junior and a senior:

“Các nghĩa vụ của Bên Có Nghĩa Vụ theo quy định của Bảo Lãnh xếp hạng và sẽ tối thiểu xếp
hạng ngang bằng với tất cả các nghĩa vụ không được bảo đảm và không thứ cấp khác của Bên
Có Nghĩa Vụ, ngoại trừ những nghĩa vụ được ưu tiên theo quy định pháp luật.”

The Junior’s version: The Senior’s version:

The obligations of the obligor under the
provisions of Surety rank and will rank
at least equally with all obligations is
not guaranteed and no other secondary
obligor, except those obligations
prioritized according to law.
The obligations of the Obligor under
the Guarantee rank and will rank at
least pari passu with all its other
unsecured and unsubordinated
obligations except for obligations
preferred as a matter of law.

42
 (Extracted from Form of Internal Legal Opinion)
(Translator 6, Transcript, September 2014)

The Junior’s version is not as good as the Senior’s one because of two factors: word choice and
grammar. As the junior translator did not know certain legal terminologies, his sentence did not
look as standard as it is supposed to be whereas the senior translator used appropriate legal jargons
so his sentence sounded more legal as a result (e.g. equally # pari passu; not guaranteed and no
other secondary obligor # unsecured and unsubordinated obligations; according to law # as a
matter of law). Besides, the first version was not correctly translated in terms of grammar (The
obligations of the obligor under the provisions of Surety rank and will rank at least equally with all
obligations is not guaranteed and no other secondary obligor), which is believed to be caused by
the junior’s limited grammar knowledge, resulting in his poor writing skills.

The participants additionally mentioned analytical skills (T3, T5, and T4) as skills to be owned to
understand and translate legal instruments more precisely. Having an experience in this regard, I
would like to share my story:

A month ago I was asked to translate from English into Vietnamese a document relating to life
insurance and its products with brand new knowledge of marketing and insurance sectors. I had
to spend a lot of time searching for marketing and insurance terminologies and concepts on the
Internet. That was when I made the best use of my analytical skills to collect and analyse
information I got from the Internet and make decisions on which explanations/definitions
perfectly match undefined terms/expressions, having considered the marketing and life
insurance context.
Researcher’s story, November, 2014

By conducting extensive research and leveraging my analytical skills, I finished the document to
the satisfaction of the lawyer in charge and concurrently obtained knowledge of marketing and life
insurance sectors in return.

In addition to the skills above, there are certain qualities that assist the participants to work more
efficiently and confidently. From the list of qualities provided by all the translators, knowledge of
local and international legal systems (T1, T6, T7, and T9), general knowledge (T3, T5, and T8) and
patience (T4, T5, and T8) outweigh other qualities as agreed by the majority of the participants. It is
easily comprehensible why such qualities take the lead. As Chapter Two reveals, lawyers expect
legal translators to produce their translated versions with legal effect guaranteed, hence a need for a

43
legal translator to possess knowledge of both local and international legal systems. Without such
knowledge, the translator can purely ensure grammatically correct translation, not a translation with
a legal sense. General knowledge, on the other hand, is considered essential to a legal translator as
legal translation deals with various domains of knowledge, i.e. finance, medicine, politics, etc. It is
true that a legal translator will process a legal document quicker if he/she is knowledgeable about as
many areas as possible. The reason ‘patience’ is required of a legal translator is understandable also
as it helps the translator focus on the work and stick to it until it is finished although he/she does not
enjoy doing it at all for legal instruments have been regarded as one of the most difficult
instruments to read. Besides those qualities, the participants also list some other necessary qualities
that they also possess: neutrality (T1 & T2) to be impartial in translating any kinds of documents,
carefulness (T3 & T10) to produce error-free translated versions, an enquiring mind (T3 & T4) to
proactively acquire as much knowledge of different fields as possible, and a good memory (T9) to
quickly refer to documents or resources relevant to the document being handled.

Briefly, despite the fact that all the interviewed translators are at different levels, subject to their
experience (ranging from two [02] to fourteen [14] years) in legal translation, they all own special
skills and qualities that are vital to the post as specified above. Taking a look back at Chapter Two
where related literature is reviewed, the above said skills and qualities were also partially reflected
once requirements to be satisfied by a legal translator are discussed. In the participants’ view, if a
fish cannot survive without water, legal translators cannot survive legal translation without the
afore-mentioned skills and qualities and mastering these skills and qualities fully turns to be a
decisive factor that helps confirm the pre-eminent position of a legal translator amongst his/her
counterparts.

The reasons why legal translators should equip themselves with the above skills and qualities may
be explained by considering the most common problems and difficulties they have encountered in
legal translation. As an insider of HCMC legal industry for more than three years, I have
experienced certain problems and difficulties and I shaped Q3 in the belief that other legal
translators have their own challenges too which should be made public for a deeper understanding
of legal translation.

Frankly, it did not astonish me when six [06] participants (T1, T2, T4, T5, T7, and T8) conceded
that terminologies have constantly caused them headaches. From my personal perspective with
relevant experience, there are two main causes rendering terminologies a nightmare for the majority
of legal translators. The first reason could be attributable to a lack of legal knowledge and as well

44
knowledge of a particular field, for example banking, finance, insurance, construction, and so on.
Explanations of specialized terminologies are not provided in normal dictionaries most of the time
is the second reason that triggers troubles as any translation cannot be completed unless the
translator knows appropriate meaning of every single word/expression used in a sentence. The
example that follows will help clarify the point:

Underwriting: The Insurer will have sophisticated capabilities for auto-underwriting

(automatically underwritten when a certain set of parameters is met), pre-underwriting
(enabling at point-of-sale to commit issuance of the policy), and interactive questioning for
simpler sales process. Tailored grids (financial and medical, focused on channels / products)
are developed within the risk framework of the Insurer to enable the distributors to be highly
competitive, while remaining compliant.
(Quoted from a Long Term Life Insurance Agreement)

This instance generated from my work a month ago. I was requested to translate a Life Insurance
Agreement of 35 pages long and the document really scared me when I skimmed through it for the
first time and found that it is all about life insurance, insurance products, and marketing strategies
to promote sales of such products. As confirmed by the translators I met and from my own
experience, insurance documents are considered one of the most difficult documents to deal with
due to its specialized terminologies which could not be easily found through dictionaries or Internet.
The illustrative paragraph is one of six components of the Customer Services Architecture that the
Insurer plans to apply and the point is I could not understand it at all for a large amount of
insurance terminologies are used, i.e. underwriting; auto-underwriting; pre-underwriting;
interactive questioning and financial and medical grids. The same happened with the rest
components and I had no other choice but seeking advice from an insider of insurance industry who
is knowledgeable about life insurance and it was so lucky that I could find one. Upon hearing his
detailed explanations, I then knew what the paragraph is about and translated it smoothly.

There is no denying that terminologies have continuously frightened legal translators, whether
experienced or inexperienced (as earlier evidenced in Chapters Two and Four), and more to the
point, it is always a big problem that could not be totally removed from the job.

In summary, the key problems as identified previously include terminological equivalents,

grammatical elements (i.e. long sentences, unusual sentence structures, subjunctives), ambiguities,

45
all of which can be classified as language problems generated by legal translation, and lack of
background knowledge of other areas (as evidenced in T3’s story, Chapter Four).

In making these difficulties less severe, the participants and I have worked out certain solutions
from time to time, and the most workable solutions to such problems are extensively searching on
the Internet until satisfactory explanations/definitions are found or asking lawyers/experts of
relevant practice areas inside and outside the firms for help.

5.2 Tertiary-level Translation Training Programs received by the participants

Before becoming professional legal translators as they are today, all the translators interviewed had
to undergo academic English training programs at their universities so how they were trained to be
legal translators is another critical issue to be looked at in more detail.

Question 04 to Question 11 in the list of twenty-two [22] questions were designed to reflect the
training history of ten [10] legal translators, and the participants’ responses to such questions did
not surprise me at all.

Sadly, none of the participants were taught to become legal translators when they were
undergraduates of English major (Q4). I could guess their answers in advance indeed as I was also
one of them who received translation training of similar nature back then. In particular, nine [09]
translators (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, and T9) were merely taught general English, including
English four skills and other English-major related subjects, together with non-specialized English
translation and interpretation when they chose English Translation and Interpretation. T10 was an
exception who learned teaching methodology for the most part of his university training; still,
English translation was included at a basic level with no specialized translation area. In a word, all
ten [10] translators graduated from their universities holding a BA in English which earned them no
knowledge of legal translation or any other specialized translation fields when it was time for them
to earn their living as translators.

Though the participants studied at different institutions, they all went through a similar learning
process if they majored in English Translation and Interpretation, ranging from basic to advanced
translation in both English and Vietnamese languages with training materials appropriate to each
learning phase. Translation training materials utilized in the participants’ time might help to
corroborate the point.

46
 Translation training materials Content Student’s Remark
level
Basic grammar rules
Basic Translation Practice
Basic sentence structures Basic
(Luyện Dịch Căn Bản)
Sentence translation practice
Translation Practice 1 (E-V)
(Luyện dịch 1 – Anh – Việt) Paragraph translation Sets of new vocabulary
Elementary
(in environment, business, for each particular topic
Intermediate
Translation Practice 2 (V-E) tourism, etc.) provided
(Luyện dịch 2 – Việt – Anh)
Interpreting 1 & 2
(Phiên dịch 1 & 2)
Sets of new vocabulary
Advanced Translation (E-V) Essay and Article translation
Advanced for each particular topic
(Luyện dịch Cao cấp – Anh – Việt) (mainly in tourism & business)
provided
Advanced Translation (V-E)
(Luyện dịch Cao cấp – Việt – Anh)

In brief, although the participants did have chances to practice their translation and interpretation
skills in a number of fields, they could not acquire a considerable amount of knowledge of any
particular field, given limited training time at school as well as limited amount of knowledge of a
particular field they earned during years of university.
This is where you need to add a bit more – examples from these texts / course materials to
demonstrate eg the level of sentence structure taught.
You could also add something about in the experience of the translators (and you) did the courses
help you to learn the other things / qualities you identify eg analytical skills, patience etc

Apparently, the translation training programs reflected through the training materials as above
presented provide a logical explanation as to why all the interviewed translators said “No” when
asked the following question: “Do you think your training was adequate to meet your current needs
as a legal translator?” (Q6). Simply, none of each of the participant received academic training in
legal translation when they were would-be translators at their institutions. Nine [09] participants
(T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, and T10) underwent general translation training with their
translation tasks mainly involving tourism and business whereas T9 was trained to translate political
issues for the most part as it was when Vietnam was fighting against American army. Q7 and Q8
were made as a follow-up to Q6 for the purpose of examining specific aspects of the training
programs that the participants would change if they could, and eight [08] out of ten [10] translators
(T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, and T9) raised their voice in this regard. Particularly, four [04] (T2,
T3, T5, and T7) concurred that legal translation should be included in their university training by
way of providing students with legal documents from simple to advanced level so they could

47
familiarize themselves with legal terminologies, legal systems, complicated structures frequently
used in legal documents, and so on, given an increase in market demands on legal translation upon
Vietnam’s entry into WTO in 2007. Concerning other training aspects added by the participants, T5
and T9 wanted to have literature translation; T6 looked for more training in translation software
and information technology that he deems useful for him to work faster when manual translation is
minimized; T7 wished to be provided with basic knowledge of law as he worked for a law firm
when he was still a student; T8 thought all students should be equipped with self-study skills as
“humans are born to learn but need to know how to learn well”. What is surprising about the
findings in this respect is that T1 and T10 had no complaint about their past training programs as, in
their opinions, the programs sufficiently provided them with the knowledge they need, for example
English skills and English-related knowledge.

As the above fact reveals, legal translation was not part of the past translation training programs
received by all the participants, which means the participants merely learned to be translators in
general, not to be legal translators or translators of any particular area when they were
undergraduates of English Translation and Interpretation. For this reason, all the participants and I
joined our very first law firms with very little or almost no knowledge of legal translation and we
had to study extensively on our own; more precisely, we received on-the-job training through our
daily work. We both worked and learned at the same time to acquire legal translation knowledge,
little by little, and all the earlier introduced skills and qualities that this job requires were also
developed and sharpened during this process of autonomous learning. At present, we still keep
learning new knowledge to catch up with today’s fast changing world in different ways, particulars
of which will be presented in the next Section.

5.3 Training received or considered useful by the participants in Legal Translation

Since their past degree level translation training failed to meet their current needs as legal
translators, all the translators engaged in this research have constantly made enormous efforts to
survive legal translation professionally by various methods. What in particular all the participants
have done to reach this level is self-studying extremely hard by reading extensively both
Vietnamese and international laws to accumulate legal knowledge as well as by studying
thoroughly documents in a variety of fields such as banking, finance, tax, insurance, etc., to learn
new terminologies/concepts and familiarize themselves with different contexts when they are free
from work. Some participants also searched for and attended other training programs to obtain extra
knowledge. Four [04] translators (T1, T2, T3, and T7) took a course in Law at HCMULAW as their

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second degree to equip themselves with practical legal knowledge of Vietnam and knowledge of
other legal systems that they believe vital to their work and three of them (T2, T3, and T7) also
finished Legal Practice Course offered by HCMC Judicial Academy to become qualified lawyers.
Unanimously, these four translators asserted that the knowledge they gained from the course, e.g.
labor law, law on enterprises, law on land, banking law, etc., has materially assisted them in doing
their work more efficiently in terms of time and efforts and make them more confident, compared to
the time when they possessed no knowledge of law. Asked about the type of training that they think
most useful for them at this stage of work (Q9), each participant gave their own opinions which are
briefly summarized in Table 5.1 below.

Translator Training Area Reason Status

More and more companies being sold to or
Translator 1 Law: Merger and Acquisition Not yet received
merged with other companies
To earn legal knowledge to better support her
Translator 2 Law Done
job
To effectively deal with documents in these
Banking & Finance
Translator 3 sectors as he usually faces such areas in his Not yet received
Terminologies
daily work
To support her work at Immigration
Translator 4 Law: Immigration Law Not yet received
Department
Translator 5 Application of Translation
Tools/Software
To speed up translation process Not yet received
Translator 6 (TRADOS, Wordfast,
Babylon, Prompt, Systran…)
His job requires interpretation sometimes and
Translator 7 Interpretation Not yet received
he wants to improve his memorization skills
To translate exactly terms and conditions of
Translator 8 Law: Labor Law Not yet received
labor contracts
Her job requires French translation as it is a
Translator 9 French Legal Translation Not yet received
French law firm
To translate the text in its true legal sense in
Translator 10 Law compliance with the legal system of the target Not yet received
language

Table 5.1: Summary of participants’ opinions on training programs they consider useful at this stage of work

As shown through Table 5.1, the participants opined differently upon training courses they might
take to work better in legal industry but most of them have not yet had an opportunity to join these
programs due to their heavy schedules and also because some training areas (Banking & Financial
Terminologies; Application of Translation Tools/Software; French Legal Translation) are not being
offered widely in HCMC outside law firms.

The Table also demonstrates that Law is a training area desired by many participants, whether or
not they already took a Law course (T1, T2, T4, T8, and T10) as knowledge of law is of crucial

49
importance to a legal translator. In fact, what makes legal translators work less effectively and feel
less confident is their lack of background knowledge of law and legal systems while their daily
work involves reading, examining, translating and reviewing legal instruments of various kinds. In
other words, a legal translator could not translate any legal instrument in its strict legal sense
without legal knowledge, hence the need for final review by another lawyer at the firm before the
document is sent out. I am a case in point: I have almost no knowledge of law so all of my work
must be finally reviewed by a lawyer to ensure legal effect before it comes to clients’ hands.
Moreover, I usually ask and seek advice from lawyers on any part of a document that I am not sure
how to translate with its legal sense assured. This truly makes me more passive in doing my job and
I have to rely much on lawyers and so do other participants who have yet studied Law. In contrast,
those who already earned themselves legal knowledge from law school, T1, T2, T3 and T7, feel
much more active and confident in work once they can preserve legal effect of the text they are
handling and in some cases they even do not need another lawyer to review their work as it is good
enough to deliver to clients. Apparently, there is a big gap between legal translators with legal
knowledge and those without such kind of knowledge. Undeniably, the former will be more highly
rated in their firms whereas the latter still has a way to go to reach that level.

For other training areas as above mentioned, the participants have applied a number of ways to
acquire such knowledge in the absence of official training. Concretely, what T3 is doing day by day
to get the knowledge he wants, banking and finance terminologies, is to read extensively documents
in these sectors and practise translating such kinds of materials on a regular basis to have these
terms embedded in his mind automatically. Updating these terms in his self-made glossary is the
next step to take so he could quickly refer to it when necessary without spending time searching on
the Internet again. As regards translation software (TRADOS, Wordfast, Babylon, Prompt, Systran,
etc.) that remarkably assists translation process with little involvement of translators, T5 and T6
study by themselves how to use the software to speed up their translation as their firms do not apply
such tools. Normally, it is costly to furnish such software and more importantly, the translator might
be deemed redundant at his/her company once the software is used. In fact, the majority of law
firms opt to have their own legal translators, whether part-time or full-time, to perform translation
tasks to ensure translation quality which the software may fail to meet. In respect of Interpretation
course, T7 learnt that there is a short-term course (six months) of this kind provided in Hanoi and he
plans to take it as soon as possible. In summary, constant learning in areas connected with legal
translation is no doubt essential to all the participants as long as they stay in this position and
subject to their working schedule, financial condition and their own needs, they will find their own

50
ways to gain such knowledge (as evidenced above) in an effort to protect their position at the
current firm as well as to pave the way for their career advancement.

5.4 Legal Translation Training offered by the participants’ law firms

It was sad to know that most of the participants’ law firms (T1, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, and
T10) and my firm also provide no internal legal translation training, let alone opportunities for
external training in such translation area (Q10). T2 is possibly the luckiest one of the group when
her firm agreed to sponsor her Law studying at HCMULAW. That is to say the interviewed
translators have to pursue training courses as are necessary for their work (if any) at their own
expenses if they want to improve their translation skills and broaden their background knowledge,
despite the fact that their law firms are one of the main beneficiaries. T1, T3 and T7 are a case in
point when they decided to did Law as their second degree without any sponsor from their firms.
This was also evidenced earlier in the preceding Section 5.3 where specific methods that T3, T5,
T6, and T7 have employed to receive their targeted training are considered.

The above presentation of the participants’ past and present translation training makes it
transparently obvious that, whether in the past or at the present time, legal translation training
could not be received in institutions of higher education or anywhere else in HCMC unless the
translator works for a law firm. As William Weaver (translator of The Name of the Rose)
concludes, ‘Translation, unfortunately, is something you learn only by doing’ (as quoted in
Slepchenko 2011), on-the-job training is the only kind of training that a legal translator could
undergo from the very outset and extra training in the field can be received later, subject to his/her
actual needs. For this reason, all the participants were brand new ‘soldiers’ in legal battle when they
first joined their law companies. The majority of ten [10] translators (T1, T2, T7, T8, T9, and T10)
admitted that it took them around two to three years to become a competent legal translator once
they felt less difficult in living this occupation (Q11).

5.5 Other Issues

It is fortunate that none of ten [10] translators have encountered any ethical dilemmas as may be
arisen out of their daily work so far (Q16). In terms of translation policies that the participants must
follow at their present working places (Q17), confidentiality and guarantee of best quality and of
true and correct translation are the most common policies that such law firms impose on their
translation staff.

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One of the most interesting findings is that not all the participants enjoy being legal translators
although they have been working devotedly in this field (Q19). In particular, T3, T6, and T10 see
legal translation differently: merely a buffer in achieving future goals (T3); not a well-paid job
(T6); a job that suits him best (T10). The remaining participants (T1, T2, T4, T5, T7, T8, and T9),
however, have been feeling pleased with their current job for a variety of reasons: providing
practical knowledge of legal systems and developing translation skills (T1, T2, T4, and T7);
transparently and accurately oriented job (T8); legal jargons making mind constantly work (T9).

The last issue worth mentioning is that whether or not legal translation is an occupation that has the
potential for growth and nine [09] of ten [10] participants affirmed the growth potential of this field
with specific reasons attached (Q20). One of the principal reasons stated by the translators (T1, T2,
T3, T4, T5, and T6) is increasing foreign investment and international capital into Vietnam,
resulting in high demands on translation of legal instruments to effect such transactions. An acute
shortage of legal translators in HCMC also boosts market demands on professional legal translators
(T7). T8 and T10 admitted this occupation’s potential, though, they are not as optimistic as the
others, reasoning that a law firm does not need many translators, whether it is operating in a big
way. This is evidenced in T10’s law firm where there are three [03] translators only in both HCMC
and Hanoi offices, compared to approximately a hundred [100] employees in total. I was also a
case in point a year ago when I was the only translator who had to handle a large amount of work
for six consecutive months after the senior translator quit and the firm found it unnecessary to hire a
new one. It is sad but true to this occupation in HCMC at present. In a word, whether or not legal
translation has growth potential depends on how you see it.

5.6 Conclusion

This Chapter Five is shaped as a thematic analysis of the data collected from ten [10] interviews I
had conducted with findings reported and interpreted cautiously and also related to my own
experiences. Nonetheless, it should be noted that the Chapter does not aim to cover all aspects
relevant to legal translation but rather presenting a number of fundamental and key issues arising
from this kind of job as well as reflecting the translation training obtained by all participants in the
past and at the present time as well. With limited access to translation courses currently offered at
HCMC’s universities, the Chapter could not discuss in detail the present translation training syllabi.
In return, attitudes of the translators towards this occupation. With the hope that this Chapter will
bring the reader closer to legal translation by deepening their understanding of the field and of

52
those who live it year by year, I made every effort to have each issue examined as honestly and
thoroughly as possible so that no reader finishes reading thise Chapter empty-handed. Add a
sentence linking to the limited reference to provision of anything in degree courses that help.

CHAPTER SIX

CONCLUSION

6.1 Original aim and Answers to Research Questions

This study is built with the original aim of exploring professional lives of legal translators who are
working in HCMC which is home to plenty of local and international law firms. In addition to
experiences of legal translators, this research is also aimed to find out examine if translation courses
at tertiary level in HCMCoffered to the legal translators , whether in the past or at present, meet the
needs required by the legal translatorsthem in practice. Accordingly, two rResearch Qquestions
were devised in an effort to seek answers to the afore-said issues.

The main one isse are:

1. What are the experiences of legal translators in Ho Chi Minh City?

and Tthe subsidiary question is:

2. Did translation courses at tertiary level in HCMC address the needs identified by the legal
translators in practice?Do translation courses in Ho Chi Minh City’s universities address the
needs identified by the legal translators in practice?

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As demonstrated in Chapter Five where the findings are discussed, I, the researcher of this study,
have made correct assumptions about the experiences of the legal translators involved in this study
and the training they have received also. This is primarily because I am an insider in legal industry
that have been trained and experienced as same as the others have.

Specifically,

1. The interviewed legal translators and I myself have experienced more or less the
same in legal translation. In particular, we possess similar skills and qualities (i.e.
reading comprehension, writing skills, analytical skills, etc.) that are considered
essential for us to successfully cope with our job in the long run. The reasons why
such skills and qualities are needed that much are elaborated in Chapter Five with
particular illustrations. What is more, as a legal translator, each participant and I
have encountered certain problems and difficulties in translating legal documents.
They are terminological equivalents, ambiguities, lack of grammar knowledge, legal
knowledge as well as background knowledge of other sectors, to name a few. Now
have a summary sentence listing them Most of the participants agreed on these major
difficulties brought by legal translation that are described in detail in Chapter Five
and elsewhere herein. All these things constitute experiences of each legal translator
in this study and concurrently form their attitudes toward this challenging occupation
both positively and negatively.

2. In terms of translation training, to have the picture painted comprehensively, I

divided this training issue into three separate sections with the training lasting from
the past to the foreseeable future: translation training programs received by the
participants in the past, training in legal translation at present and legal translation
training offered by law firms. Given the study’s original aim, the training at tertiary
level is considered brieflythoroughly to see if translation courses in Ho Chi Minh
City’s universities address the needs identified by the legal translators in practice and
the findings show that the courses have failed to provide students of translation with
what they want to become translators of a specialized field in general and of legal
translation in particular. This was evidenced through stories of ten [10] participants
and mine too in Chapters Four and Five and the truth is the participants have trained
themselves mainly by way of on-the-job training or pursued extra training relevant to
legal translation at their own cost and expenses.

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6.2 Recommendations for Legal Translation Training

Having considered the fact that legal instruments are circulated internally in law firms for the sake
of confidentiality, it is absolutely not an easy task to include legal translation in translation training
programs at tertiary level as there is always a severe shortage of authentic materials for training. As
revealed throughout this study, law firms are the only places which could provide practical
experience and training in legal translation as translation is a skill to be learned only by doing. In
other words, a translator cannot earn knowledge of legal translation elsewhere but law firms where
he/she could both work and learn at the same time. For this reason, each law firm should provide
fundamental legal translation training to any of its new legal translators from the beginning so they
could have basic knowledge of the field and they owe a duty of autonomous learning to acquire
more knowledge thereof through their daily work. Subject to each firm’s practice areas (i.e.
banking, corporate, merger and acquisition, etc.), the training areas may vary from firm to firm;
thus, the training should focus on general methods of dealing with legal instruments, rather than
focusing on any particular area. Specifically, the first thing should be done by every firm is to
furnish its legal translator(s) with a glossary of terms applied thereat. Normally, such glossary is
built by a senior legal translator/senior associate (lawyer) at the firm which will be spread
throughout the translation team (if there is one) and updated on a regular basis by the translator(s)
themselves. Also, templates (in both source and target languages) for different kinds of legal
documents constructed by each firm (e.g. contracts, agreements, notices, letters, etc.) have to be
supplied to the firm’s legal translator(s) as models for them to produce translated versions in
compliance with the firm’s own styles. These two tools are truly vital to every legal translator to
survive their job and merely law firms possess such important instruments. How the translator
makes use of them and develops their skills overtime thanks to the tools will undoubtedly affect
their performance at the firm.

Besides internal training to be offered by each firm as above recommended, external training in
legal translation is needed by legal translators as well, yet there is not much of this kind being
provided in HCMC for the time being, as shown through the findings. Currently, the most preferred
training program by the majority of participants is law course at HCMULAW as it is considered
most closely to legal translation on one hand and legal knowledge, on the other hand, is critically
important to legal translation to ensure legal effect in translated documents. This extra training in
law is undeniably helpful to legal translators but it would be more perfect if legal translation
training is further provided elsewhere in HCMC. To my best knowledge and belief, translation

55
companies (e.g. VNTranslation; CNN Translation Co., etc.) or language institutes/association (e.g.
VNC Language Studies; HCMC Research Translation Association, etc.) operating in HCMC could
organize training courses in legal translation as they have access to legal documents and experience
in dealing with them, given diverse translation jobs they have handled for a variety of clients.

Another possibility and perhaps the best way for receiving legal translation training is to learn from
a legal translator. In other words, a legal translator may organize his/her own legal translation
class(es) in many ways. That is really what some participants and I aim to do in the future as we
want to impart our knowledge of legal translation to next generations, hoping that new elite groups
of legal translators will be formed to satisfy increasing market demands.

6.3 Suggestions for further research

This research is conducted with certain limitations due to time constraint and the researcher’s
limited capacity as stated earlier, hence a need for further research on legal translation and legal
translation training not only in HCMC but also in Vietnam is much needed to reflect a more
comprehensive picture of this occupation and its training. Hopefully, there will be more studies
investigating closely effective methods of training legal translation training curricula at university
level, especially useful content to be included in the courses, and to a further extent, investigating
examining legal interpretation in company with legal translation to see if they have growth
potential to be chosen as life-long career.
Add something about further research is needed to examine the detail of current provision for more
detail about potentially useful content but that the lack of specific courses remains
6.4 Conclusion

This Chapter closes the entire study by restating the original aim for which the study is conducted
and providing answers to the Research Questions. It additionally produces specific
recommendations on legal translation training and presents suggestions for further research in the
hope that the study’s issues will be further explored in the foreseeable future.

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