This highly interdisciplinary research, carried out by a practitioner, explores the outsourced legal translation environment, with a view to optimising key aspects of commissioning and performance. The results of a global survey are analysed: participants comprised 84 principals, for the most part from leading law firms and corporations, in 33 countries and 5 continents, and 303 legal translation practitioners from 41 countries and 6 continents. Concepts from corporate agency theory are used to shed light on market dysfunctions, such as a tortuous chain of supply, while perspectives from genre theory, comparative law and functionalist Translation Studies are applied to offer a theoretical model for legal translation performance and foreground its risks and constraints. Fitness-for-purpose is examined as a workable quality criterion associated with translation briefs supplied. Professionalisation and empowerment are raised as key factors with potential to significantly improve target text quality. Two practical tools have also been developed for legal and translation professionals. The first is a briefing template specifically developed for the outsourcing of legal translation, set to benefit commissioning clients by increasing the fitness-for-purpose of translated texts. The second tool, the genre-based NIFTY specialised corpus methodology, seeks to provide terminological support for translators, with particular relevance for collocations. Extensive fieldwork carried out-has brought to light 'hot spots' for risk such as severely impeded . information flows and insufficient interaction between market actors. The groundwork for dissemination to practice has already been laid, and is to be pursued forthwith. The types of legal texts outsourced prove in many instances to be highly sensitive, which further emphasises the gravity of the problem and the need to take action.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:701653 |
| Date | January 2016 |
| Creators | Scott, Juliette Rose |
| Publisher | University of Bristol |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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