Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in Hong Kong presents a systematic account from a cross-disciplinary perspective of the activities of legal translation and bilingual law drafting in the bilingual international city of Hong Kong and its interaction with Mainland China and Taiwan in the use of legal terminology. The study mainly examines the challenges posed to English-Chinese translation in the past three decades by elaborate drafting and terminological equivalence, and offers educational and research solutions. Its primary goals are to create legal Chinese that naturally accommodates common law concepts and statutes from the English legal system and to reconcile Chinese legal terms from the different legal systems adopted by Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. The new directions in legal translation and bilingual law drafting in Hong Kong will have implications for other Chinese regions and for the world. The book is intended for scholars, researchers, teachers and students of legal translation and legal linguistics, legal translators, lawyers and legal practitioners who are engaged in translation, as well as all persons who are interested in legal language and legal translation.

Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in Hong Kong presents a systematic account from a cross-disciplinary perspective of the activities of legal translation and bilingual law drafting in the bilingual international city of Hong Kong and its interaction with Mainland China and Taiwan in the use of legal terminology. The study mainly examines the challenges posed to English-Chinese translation in the past three decades by elaborate drafting and terminological equivalence, and offers educational and research solutions. Its primary goals are to create legal Chinese that naturally accommodates common law concepts and statutes from the English legal system and to reconcile Chinese legal terms from the different legal systems adopted by Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. The new directions in legal translation and bilingual law drafting in Hong Kong will have implications for other Chinese regions and for the world. The book is intended for scholars, researchers, teachers and students of legal translation and legal linguistics, legal translators, lawyers and legal practitioners who are engaged in translation, as well as all persons who are interested in legal language and legal translation.

This volume investigates advances in the field of legal translation both from a theoretical and practical perspective, with professional and academic insights from leading experts in the field. Part I of the collection focuses on the exploration of legal translatability from a theoretical angle. Covering fundamental issues such as equivalence in legal translation, approaches to legal translation and the interaction between judicial interpretation and legal translation, the authors offer contributions from philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives. Part II focuses on the analysis of legal translation from a practical perspective among different jurisdictions such as China, the EU and Japan, offering multiple and pluralistic viewpoints. This book presents a collection of studies in legal translation which not only provide the latest international research findings among academics and practitioners, but also furnish us with a new approach to, and new insights into, the phenomena and nature of legal translation and legal transfer. The collection provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, academics and students specialising in law and legal translation, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and semiotics.

Chinese Legal Translation analyses and investigates the Chinese translation of conditional clauses introduced by various introductory words in Hong Kong bilingual ordinances within the framework of descriptive translation studies and translation typology. This book explores the text typology of Hong Kong bilingual ordinances, and highlights differences and similarities between different translations of conditional clauses in the Hong Kong context. Based on both quantitative and qualitative analysis of conditional clauses of the Companies Ordinance, the book summarises the frequency of introductory words of conditional clauses and generalises guiding patterns of writing conditional clauses and translating conditional clauses. The book is significant in providing both theoretical foundations for legal translation and practical guidance for translating legal conditional clauses. This book is primarily targeted for scholars and professionals who are interested in legal writing and legal translation, as well as for students and practitioners in legal translation.

The translation of law has played an integral part in the interaction among nations in history and is playing a greater role in our increasingly interconnected world today. The book investigates legal translation in its many facets as an intellectual pursuit and a profession. It examines legal translation from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering theoretical and practical grounds and linguistic as well as legal issues. It analyses legal translation competence and various types of legal texts including contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments, presents a comparative analysis of the Common Law and the Civil Law and examines the case law from Canada, Hong Kong and the European Court of Justice. It attempts to demonstrate that translating law is a complex act that can enrich law, culture and human experience as a whole.

This book describes interdisciplinary exploration of matters related to the translation and interpreting of legal texts. Translation of legal texts has grown exponentially since the beginning of new millennium in response to the fast-increasing volume of international trade and business as well as all sorts of other transnational activities in a myriad of spheres. International trade demands translation of trade laws and business contracts, immigration leads to rise in court interpreting services, and countries may seek to enhance their international influence through translating and making known to the world their laws and/or other legal documents. These legal translation activities occurred mostly between languages officially used in international or regional organizations, such as the United Nations and the European Union, and between the languages of major countries who exert or seek influence on international economy and law. On the other hand, rapid advances in computer technology and artificial intelligence in recent years have also brought about changes in the practices of legal translation. With changes also come problems in both theory and practice that merit our immediate attention. This edited volume highlights the newest developments in the theory, practice, and training of legal translation, with contributions from international leading researchers in this area. It will be a standard reference for anyone who is to embark on research and practice of legal translation in the twenty-first century. It is also adaptable as teaching materials for translation and interpreting training.

This book is a survey of how law, language and translation overlap with concepts, crimes and conflicts. It is a transdisciplinary survey exploring the dynamics of colonialism and the globalization of crime. Concepts and conflicts are used here to mean ‘conflicting interpretations’ engendering real conflicts. Beginning with theoretical issues and hermeneutics in chapter 2, the study moves on to definitions and applications in chapter 3, introducing cattle stealing as a comparative theme and global case study in chapter 4. Cattle stealing is also known in English as ‘rustling, duffing, raiding, stock theft, lifting and predatorial larceny.’ Crime and punishment are differently perceived depending on cultures and legal systems: ‘Captain Starlight’ was a legendary ‘duffer’; in India ‘lifting’ a sacred cow is a sacrilegious act. Following the globalization of crime, chapter 5 deals with human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide. International treaties in translation set the scene for two world wars. Introducing ‘unequal treaties’ (e.g. Hong Kong), chapter 6 highlights disasters caused by treaties in translation. Cases feature American Indians (the ‘trail of broken treaties’), Maoris (Treaty of Waitangi) and East Africa (Treaty of Wuchale).