Language, Translation and Law The main objective of this thesis is to explore the interconnection of law and language with a special focus on legal translation. The author of the thesis analyses the history of legal translation together with multilingualism in European Union. The thesis is divided into three major parts: "Language in law", "Translation in law" and "Language(s) and multilingualism in the European Union". The author explains the term legal language in the first part. The attention is directed to indeterminacy and incomprehensibility of the legal language as well as to legal vocabulary and stylistics of legal discourse. The author furthermore analyses the role and legal regulation of the legal language in Czech legislation. The plain language movement is noted as well. The second part of the thesis examines in detail various aspects of legal translation. The author summarises legal translation history worldwide as well as the historical development within the Czech territory. Legal translation is addressed on the basis of the specific use of translation (legislation, international treaties, certified translation and interpretation). In the certified translation and interpretation history the author introduces the sworn interpreters cabinet decree of 22 December 1835 (Hofdecret 109....

This thesis investigates lexical simplification as a translation universal and how it is accounted for in the English-to-French legal translation of Latinisms. Within descriptive and functional approaches to translation, this thesis reveals that Latinisms are reproduced when they are accepted and not lexicalized in the target language or substituted by functional and semantic equivalents of the target language or system. It is posited that the lexical simplification of ST Latinisms as rendered by the English-to-French legal translator is dictated by system-specific, convention-specific, function-specific rather than translationspecific features. Of all corpus texts, source-text English uses the most Latinisms, but the French translators, unlike the non-translated French producers, tend to use Latinisms to a higher extent. Lexical simplification is hypothesized as viable when languages of similar sociolinguistic and lexical power and equal status render differently the lexical entities of the source text in simplified target text (compared to its non-translation similar text).

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

University of Macau / Faculty of Law

O objetivo desta pesquisa é estudar os binômios que ocorrem em contratos de common law à luz da Lingüística de Corpus, procurando dar subsídios que auxiliem os tradutores de textos jurídicos a chegar a uma tradução natural, ou seja, para que traduzam linguagem jurídica por linguagem jurídica. Os binômios são formados por duas palavras pertencentes à mesma categoria gramatical, ligadas pela conjunção and ou or. Alguns exemplos são: terms and conditions, any and all, executed and delivered, due and payable, action or proceeding, agreement or obligation. Os binômios são uma marca do inglês jurídico e como tal têm sido objeto de diversos estudos. O mesmo, porém, não ocorre com a linguagem jurídica em português. Assim, ao lidar com a tradução de binômios, estudos mostram que os tradutores brasileiros se apegam à opção mais literal. A escolha de estudar os binômios nos contratos de common law se deve ao fato de estarem os contratos entre os documentos mais difíceis de traduzir e de ler e por terem uma altíssima concentração de binômios. Por essas razões, para estudar os binômios na linguagem jurídica em inglês e dar elementos para o tradutor chegar à tradução em português do Brasil, compilamos um corpus comparável de agreements e contratos autênticos perfazendo, aproximadamente, 1 milhão de palavras - 705 744 em inglês e 289 984 em português - composto por 5 amostras de 28 espécies de contratos e agreements, totalizando 140 documentos em cada língua. O corpus foi explorado de acordo com os princípios e ferramentas da Lingüística de Corpus. Para etiquetar o corpus usamos o programa CLAWS 7 (the Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System) do UCREL (Universidade de Lancaster) e para explorá-lo, o WordSmith Tools de Mike Scott. / This research aims at studying binomial expressions in common law agreements in the light of Corpus Linguistics in an attempt to provide translators with the necessary linguistic elements that will enable them to render a natural translation, that is, to translate legal language into legal language. Binomial expressions are formed by two words belonging to the same grammatical category and joined by and or or. Some examples are: terms and conditions, any and all, executed and delivered, due and payable, action or proceeding, agreement or obligation. Binomials are an integral part of English legal language and as such have deserved a considerable amount of study. The same, however, does not occur in Brazilian Portuguese legal language. Therefore, when dealing with binomial expressions, studies show that Brazilian translators tend to translate all the elements of a binomial literally. The choice of text type is due to the fact that agreements and contratos are among the most difficult documents to translate and seem to have an incredibly high concentration of binomial expressions. For said reasons, in order to study binomials in English legal language and provide elements for translators to arrive at their own translation into Brazilian Portuguese, we have compiled and explored a bilingual comparable corpus consisting of authentic agreements and contratos, totalling, approximately, 1 million words - 705,744 in English and 289,984 in Brazilian Portuguese - made up of 5 samples of 28 different kinds of contratos and agreements, a total of 140 documents in each language. Exploring such a corpus greatly depended on the principles and tools of Corpus Linguistics. To tag the corpus we used UCREL\'s CLAWS 7 (the Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System) and to explore the corpus we used Mike Scott\'s WordSmith Tools.

This thesis explores the role and impact of Rannóg an Aistriúcháin - the Oireachtas Government Translation section - on English-Irish legal translation and terminology, with particular focus on the period 1922-1937; a period bookended by the establishment of the Irish Free State and the enactment of Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Constitution of Ireland) in 1937. It aims to assess the efficacy and consistency of the translation strategies and Irish legal terms employed by Rannóg an Aistriúcháin, and to investigate how modern translation theory – specifically equivalence theory – may be applied to English-Irish legal translation as a whole. While a semantic study of the English and Irish versions of the amended 1937 Constitution has previously been carried out (Ó Cearúil, 1999), there has yet to be any specific study of other translated English-Irish legislative material within the Irish Free State or, indeed, of any laws translated within the Rannóg. This is an area which holds great research potential as regards assessing the efficacy of a particular body of translations, as the position of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland is a unique one. Not only is Irish an official language of the European Union, but it enjoys constitutional status as the National and First Official language of the Republic of Ireland, with Article 25.4.6o of the Irish Constitution 1937 providing that: ‘In case of conflict between the texts of a law enrolled under this section in both the official languages, the text in the national language shall prevail’. In other words, should the Irish translation deviate in any way from its English legislative counterpart, it is the Gaelic translated legislation - along with all its construed connotations and associations - which has the upper hand. With this reasoning in mind, this thesis takes a corpus of EN-GA legislative material translated by Rannóg an Aistriúcháin during the period 1922-1937, from which legal terms are chosen for analysis and qualitatively and semantically assessed in the context of Equivalence translation theory and legal translation. Ultimately, this thesis provides a new critical assessment of the reliability of Irish language legal terminology in primary legislation from this period; an analysis of how Equivalence theory may be applied to EN-GA legal translation as a whole; and provides some guidelines for future endeavours in English-Irish legal translation and terminology.

This thesis investigates lexical simplification as a translation universal and how it is accounted for in the English-to-French legal translation of Latinisms. Within descriptive and functional approaches to translation, this thesis reveals that Latinisms are reproduced when they are accepted and not lexicalized in the target language or substituted by functional and semantic equivalents of the target language or system. It is posited that the lexical simplification of ST Latinisms as rendered by the English-to-French legal translator is dictated by system-specific, convention-specific, function-specific rather than translationspecific features. Of all corpus texts, source-text English uses the most Latinisms, but the French translators, unlike the non-translated French producers, tend to use Latinisms to a higher extent. Lexical simplification is hypothesized as viable when languages of similar sociolinguistic and lexical power and equal status render differently the lexical entities of the source text in simplified target text (compared to its non-translation similar text).

This thesis is about achieving local procedural legitimacy through fair, culturally relevant sentencing procedures. Its scope, is reconciling international due process guarantees and a traditional notion of rights, in sentencing procedures of the International Criminal Court. My interest in this topic arose from the 2003 Uganda Law Reform Commission study on sentencing legislation reforms. There, participants regarded clan courts as functional in rural areas, because they had more informal, conciliatory sentencing processes than the ‘alien’ national courts. I later became aware that incorporation of traditional restorative processes may also help solve problems of legitimacy at the international level, as manifested in the case of Joseph Kony, discussed in Chapter 1 of this thesis. I then investigate whether the international sentencing framework could accommodate features of traditional restorative process despite incongruent standards, and if so, how this could be achieved. I argue that procedural rights ought to underpin this reconciliation, harnessing aims of international criminal justice with traditional restorative justice. Through my translation model, I propose small structural changes to international sentencing practice, and doctrinal reforms based on precedent. Using critical legal analysis and a small empirical study, the thesis demonstrates how translation could achieve just, culturally apposite sentencing outcomes. The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the Special Court for Sierra Leone provide insight into challenges to accommodating African normative standards. Nominal guidance from the African human rights mechanism and national courts, on an African notion of procedural fairness, further complicates this reconciliation. I conclude that we could translate laws across divergent legal systems, drawing from experiences of clan courts that assimilate legal structures and concepts from national courts. Major international instruments: Rome Statute 1998, United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 1966 and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights 1981, are evaluated against this model.

O objetivo desta pesquisa é estudar os binômios que ocorrem em contratos de common law à luz da Lingüística de Corpus, procurando dar subsídios que auxiliem os tradutores de textos jurídicos a chegar a uma tradução natural, ou seja, para que traduzam linguagem jurídica por linguagem jurídica. Os binômios são formados por duas palavras pertencentes à mesma categoria gramatical, ligadas pela conjunção and ou or. Alguns exemplos são: terms and conditions, any and all, executed and delivered, due and payable, action or proceeding, agreement or obligation. Os binômios são uma marca do inglês jurídico e como tal têm sido objeto de diversos estudos. O mesmo, porém, não ocorre com a linguagem jurídica em português. Assim, ao lidar com a tradução de binômios, estudos mostram que os tradutores brasileiros se apegam à opção mais literal. A escolha de estudar os binômios nos contratos de common law se deve ao fato de estarem os contratos entre os documentos mais difíceis de traduzir e de ler e por terem uma altíssima concentração de binômios. Por essas razões, para estudar os binômios na linguagem jurídica em inglês e dar elementos para o tradutor chegar à tradução em português do Brasil, compilamos um corpus comparável de agreements e contratos autênticos perfazendo, aproximadamente, 1 milhão de palavras - 705 744 em inglês e 289 984 em português - composto por 5 amostras de 28 espécies de contratos e agreements, totalizando 140 documentos em cada língua. O corpus foi explorado de acordo com os princípios e ferramentas da Lingüística de Corpus. Para etiquetar o corpus usamos o programa CLAWS 7 (the Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System) do UCREL (Universidade de Lancaster) e para explorá-lo, o WordSmith Tools de Mike Scott. / This research aims at studying binomial expressions in common law agreements in the light of Corpus Linguistics in an attempt to provide translators with the necessary linguistic elements that will enable them to render a natural translation, that is, to translate legal language into legal language. Binomial expressions are formed by two words belonging to the same grammatical category and joined by and or or. Some examples are: terms and conditions, any and all, executed and delivered, due and payable, action or proceeding, agreement or obligation. Binomials are an integral part of English legal language and as such have deserved a considerable amount of study. The same, however, does not occur in Brazilian Portuguese legal language. Therefore, when dealing with binomial expressions, studies show that Brazilian translators tend to translate all the elements of a binomial literally. The choice of text type is due to the fact that agreements and contratos are among the most difficult documents to translate and seem to have an incredibly high concentration of binomial expressions. For said reasons, in order to study binomials in English legal language and provide elements for translators to arrive at their own translation into Brazilian Portuguese, we have compiled and explored a bilingual comparable corpus consisting of authentic agreements and contratos, totalling, approximately, 1 million words - 705,744 in English and 289,984 in Brazilian Portuguese - made up of 5 samples of 28 different kinds of contratos and agreements, a total of 140 documents in each language. Exploring such a corpus greatly depended on the principles and tools of Corpus Linguistics. To tag the corpus we used UCREL\'s CLAWS 7 (the Constituent Likelihood Automatic Word-tagging System) and to explore the corpus we used Mike Scott\'s WordSmith Tools.

A pesquisa para desenvolvimento da presente dissertação teve como objetivo demonstrar o uso de recursos de tecnologia de informação e comunicação na modalidade de Educação à Distância (EAD) para a viabilização de um curso de tradução na área de especialidade jurídica no par de idiomas Inglês-Português. A proposta surgiu com base na necessidade e interesse de tradutores em formação, atuantes no mercado e estudiosos da tradução em se aperfeiçoarem nessa área cada vez mais exigente e competitiva. A dificuldade de locomoção de interessados, que estejam localizados em regiões que não contemplem a possibilidade de cursos em suas proximidades ou ainda a não compatibilidade de tempo em horários pré-estabelecidos por cursos presenciais propiciam a busca por alternativas que venham a satisfazer tal demanda. A pesquisa objetivou descrever e verificar a implantação e o desenvolvimento de um curso no que concerne a aspectos didático-pedagógicos para capacitação, aprimoramento, aperfeiçoamento e desenvolvimento de tradutores. Sua fundamentação teórica teve por base, entre outros, estudos de Knowles (1984) e Mendes (2012) no que tange aos princípios de Andragogia e ensino-aprendizagem de adultos, Presas (2000), Hurtado Albir (1999) e Pym (2006 a 2012) com relação à formação e treinamento de tradutores, Aubert (1998), Chaffey (1997) e Reichmann (2102), Sarcevic (1997) sobre tradução jurídica e Morán (2009), Mendes (2012) e Simão Neto (2002) sobre Educação à Distância. As ferramentas utilizadas na aplicação do curso à distância na fase piloto, assim como nas duas edições seguintes, foram as dos serviços Grupos do Google e Google Drive. Dentre os inscritos no EAD contamos com um total de 35 participantes e com 12 no curso presencial ofertado como grupo de controle para comparação. A descrição dos resultados revelará como se deu a interação e alguns aspectos sobre o desempenho dos participantes, assim como o nível de satisfação e de aproveitamento de acordo com a pesquisa de opinião realizada ao final do curso. / This thesis research aimed to demonstrate the use of information and communication technology in online learning by means of a course in the area of legal translation in the language pair English-Portuguese. It is based on the needs and interests of translators who are professional, scholars or in training and wish to improve in the translation area, which has become highly demanding and competitive. When the issue is either related to commuting for prospects that are located in areas which do not offer the intended courses nearby or conveniently located, or when course pre-established time table offers are not compatible, the search for alternatives to suit such demand begins. The research aimed to verify the viability and describe the implementation and development of a course as to didactical and pedagogical aspects in translators´ training, development and improvement. The studies of Knowles (1984) and Mendes (2012) with regard to the principles of Andragogy and adult learning-teaching; Presas (2000), Hurtado Albir (1999) and Pym (2006 to 2012) as to translator´s training; Aubert (1998), Chaffey (1997), Reichmann (2102), and Sarcevic (1997) for legal translation and Morán (2009), Mendes (2012) and Simão Neto (2002) for online learning, among others, are the theoretic basis for the research. The tools offered in the Google Groups and Google Drive services were used in the online course pilot, as well as the two subsequent versions. There was a total of 35 participants who enrolled for the online course and 12 participants for the face-to-face course offered as a means of comparison. The description of the results will reveal the participants´ interaction and some aspects of their performance as well as their level of approval and improvement according to the survey conducted at the end of the course.