MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY UNIVERSITY OF LAW GRADUATION THESIS B. DEGREE IN ENGLISH Major: Legal English EXAMINING THE DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING LEGAL TERMS AND SUGGESTING SOME FEASIBLE SOLUTIONS Supervisor: PHAN LE CHI, MA Student: LE PHAM TUYET NGAN Student ID:1952202010034 Class: LE44A Ho Chi Minh City, 2023 ACKNOWLEDGMENT The thesis “Examining the difficulties in translating legal terms and suggesting some feasible solutions” results from my continuous research and efforts over 4 months. Having said that, I could not have completed such a comprehensive thesis without the assistance of my instructors, teachers, friends, and family. Now that, it is nearly finished my four-year experience of learning and cultivating at Ho Chi Minh City University of Law.
A really dynamic environment with a faculty of devoted, motivated, and qualified people who play a vital part in my educational studies. With all of that thankfulness, I would like to convey my deepest appreciation to Mrs. Phan Le Chi, a dedicated person who was always there to guide and assist me throughout the research and implementation processes. Once again I sincerely say thanks to you again and wish you good health.
Following that, allow me to express my heartfelt gratitude to my class advisor, Mr. Luong Minh Hieu, who has been tutoring my class for the last four years, Ms. Le Nguyen Thao Thy, who provided me with guidance and orientation on the topic, and many other lecturers who have always assisted and given me the greatest advice. I'd like to thank all of the faculty and lecturers who have guided us and patiently transmitted useful knowledge as well as always creating the best conditions for us to complete the course.
I'd also want to take this opportunity to thank my friends for always sharing and encouraging me when I was stuck. Last but not least, I like to express my gratitude to my family members for constantly accompanying, encouraging, and supporting me during this long journey. Thank you for everyone's assistance, lessons, experiences, support, and trust. Thank you so much for everything.
Sincerely thanks! LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS Terms Abbreviations Source language SL Target language TL LIST OF DIAGRAMS Title Page Process of translation 14 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION .1 Background to the research .3 Aim of the research .5 The scope of the research .6 The significance of the research .2 Data collections and data analysis .3 Subject of the research .8 Outline of the thesis. 9 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Overview of translation .1 What is translation? .2 The translation history .1 History of European translation .2 History of Vietnamese translation .3 Process of translation .4 Factors of translation .1 Word-for-word translation .5 What is legal translation? .6 The difference between Legal translation and General translation .7 What makes translating legal terms difficult?.1 Description of methodology.1 Difficulties in translating legal terms .1 Factors directly related to the terms.1 Not mastering technical terms.2 Polysemy of legal terms .3 Synonymy of legal terms.4 Collocations, legal phrases, and phrasal verbs .5 A combination of synonyms or near-meanings words .7 Legal illogical expressions .2 Other factors affecting the translation of legal terms .1 Knowledge of Legal Background .2 Differences in the legal system .3 Differences in the language system .4 Cultural differences and context .5 Complex sentence structure and grammar .1 The common difficulties encountered when translating legal terms .2 Useful methods for making term translation more straightforward and more accurate .1 Enhance and broaden understanding of both language and law .3 Choose the most appropriate translation method .4 Discover and comprehend the culture of both languages .5 Apply translation process .6 Solutions for equivalent words .3 Findings and recommendations .4 Tips for translation legal terms .2 Limitations of the study .1 Background to the research In this day and age of globalization, a nation's growth is substantially impacted by its capacity to interrelate culturally, financially, politically, and socially with the world. Nevertheless, the exchange between countries is often complicated due to the language barrier. Therefore, translation is the bridge that smoothens the process of collaboration and communication with the world, making it faster, easier, and more convenient.
It is a tool for achieving effective communication between different cultures, and also the means that can help people to know various works and broaden their knowledge of the world. According to Statistics and data research on the most spoken languages in 2022. As regards the number of native speakers, English is not the most universally spoken language worldwide. It just ranks third with about 372.9 million speakers as a mother tongue, but it is a language used by more than 1080 billion people as a second language.
Because of this reason, it naturally becomes the preferred language of choice in all aspects, which are mainly in the fields related to international, commercial, and legal fields. Many people may wonder whether it is necessary to translate English documents anymore when almost everyone is using English today. Although English is spoken by a significant number of people worldwide, not all people speak it, and their English proficiency varies. They may not have much trouble answering, communicating in English.
Having said that, truly comprehending the problems in a specialized document or a contract is another matter. Not to mention the fact that different fields involve different terms, especially those in the legal field which necessitates understanding of both the law and the language. Consequently, numerous individuals may find it difficult to read and understand specialized papers without the assistance of translation. As a result, translation will always have its place in this era.
Viet Nam is continually evolving and becoming more innovative. As a result, the amount of documents, contracts in administrative operations, trade, and international collaboration has expanded dramatically, just like (Duraner, 2014) comments, today's world involves an 1 increasing number of negotiations, agreements, and disputes between nations and individuals. The text translation industry can be found in a variety of fields, but the translation of legal papers is becoming more popular than ever as the demand for international collaboration and understanding of foreign laws develops. The legal English text is far more difficult to translate than general English text since legal English translation involves not only transferring meaning but also identifying appropriate legal terms in TL (Karjo, 2015).
Indeed, legal document translation has tougher requirements when it comes to accuracy, even 100% accuracy. This complicates legal document translation, particularly in a country like Viet Nam where rules and regulations are continuously changing. Translating legal documents is the most challenging task because literal translations will not suffice to communicate the author's intended message accurately. Moreover, losing a small piece of information or even a single mistranslation can also lead to misunderstandings and, as a result, bring about profound legal implications that potentially affect parties' rights and privileges.
Given its significance, translators have to be responsible for the accuracy of their translations without changing the concepts and information that the source content communicates, he must be sworn in the language he is translated into (Khaydarova, 2019). Willow Wilson from Alif the Unseen believes that there is a reason why languages differ, you can't switch ideas without losing something. Hence getting a translation that conveys exactly what the author wants is extremely difficult. To achieve precise translations that accurately express the author's intent, translators must have an extraordinary comprehension of both the SL and the TL.
The legal translator relies on his experience and knowledge of the subject to translate (Khaydarova, 2019). Therefore, if a legal document needs to be translated, it is essential to employ someone who is well-versed in legal language and practices. Legal translation goes beyond any conventional issues and it necessitates a high level of precision, which frequently leads to the translation process (Karjo, 2015). In addition to providing a high-quality translation, having a general understanding of legal background is not enough.
Legal documents include specific 2 morphological, grammatical, terminological, semantic, abbreviations, pragmatic, and stylistic elements that make translation difficult (Hargitt 2013). Therefore translators in the legal field have to be professionals who are highly skilled in language and understand the implications of legal terminology to guarantee that the legal translations are carried out with the utmost precision. Due to an array of transactions, legal documents are becoming increasingly important, which makes legal translation crucial and even indispensable (Duranner, 2014). The most obvious evidence is that domestic businesses and individuals have a high demand for legal translation of a wide range of documents.
As a result, inaccurate translations of these documents will cause serious legal consequences, creating misunderstandings between corporations and individuals. Even though the quality of legal translations is critical, many legal translations in Viet Nam do not satisfy the standards. In reality, when dealing with legal translation, there will be multiple obstructions. One of the most common mistakes which is deemed one of the most common blunders is the mistranslating legal terminology.
This hindrance originates from numerous elements, such as different points of view and judgments, the translator’s experience, an absence of comprehension of the term, cultural differences, lawful frameworks, and numerous other reasons. Because of this reason, many translations today have been “distorted”, even going against the author's intentions. Acknowledging the seriousness and urgency of this issue, it is extremely essential to comprehend and clear up these issues. Because doing so benefits not only the translator but also the client, who is the primary beneficiary of the translation.
Solving these concerns will enable the translator to enhance the quality of the translation and avoid rehashing those blunders.2 Rationale There are numerous reasons why this research should be conducted, below are the primary and most pressing ones: First and foremost, corporations are emerging in modern society as a result of the economic restructuring trend and so the demand for foreign commerce is also increasing 3 rapidly. This means that legal documents are critical in today's world since they can convey legal information to guide behavior and at the same time also settle issues arising from international relationships. Nonetheless, each country will have its own set of rules to govern and manage behavior, as well as to defend its citizens' rights. Therefore, the need for translation is increasing because it assists the parties in understanding the terms and information in the contract.
Today, legal documents occur in nearly every industry and it allows customers to take advantage of resources to protect their legitimate rights and interests. Mistranslation of a term or information, on the other hand, will certainly result in distinct legal implications. Cross-border transactions are occasionally threatened due to terminological inconsistency and incoherence (Gotti and Williams 2010). A translation that does not convey the correct meaning of terminologies can easily lead to misunderstandings and thus cause unnecessary damage like causing disputes later, in the worst case, the consequences can affect the property, and reputation of the customer.
Another driving factor is, due to the nature of the legal profession, legal language poses a unique set of obstacles, as even native speakers, who are laypersons, also struggle to comprehend the meaning of these specialist words. Not to mention that English is not the mother tongue of Vietnamese people, making it much more difficult to translate legal terms from English to Vietnamese and vice versa. Moreover, due to the complexity of legal systems, legal phrases can have various meanings and nuances. To be specific, common law and civil law are two systems with significant differences, for instance, the principal legal source of common law systems is case law, whereas the major legal source in the civil law system is a highly codified legal text with the presence of many legal documents, such as laws and codes.
However, in Viet Nam, the majority of the papers that need to be translated are from the common law system, which will be difficult for us to interpret (following the civil law system).