3.1 Principle Of Using Formal Words And Expressions

As legal documents are of frozen style, it is natural for their wording and phrases to be different from those applied in other styles of daily use. Due to direct involvement in rights and obligations of the parties concerned, the expressions in legal documents tend to be solemn and unemotional, which by all means should be taken into account in the translation of legal documents. For example:

w 余…，本院业已作出你和王…的离婚判决，自本公告发出之日起60日内要求你来本院领取判决书。否则，既视为送达。

Yu X X, this court has made a judgment of divorce between you and Wang X X. You are requested to receive the judgment at this court within 60 days starting the publishing date of this announcement. Otherwise, the judgment would be deemed to have been served.

In this announcement, “要求” and “视为” are translated into such formal words as request and deem instead of informal words like ask and consider in a bid to reflect the solemnity of legal documents.

w 合同的变更、解除或者终止，不影响当事人要求赔偿损失的权利。

Modification, dissolution or termination of a contract does not deprive a party of the right to claim for damages.

Likewise, in this translated sentence, we can find such formal words as modification, dissolution and termination, etc., while alter, cancel and end with the same meanings are not used here because of informality.

3.2 Principle Of Preciseness

To be precise, it requires correct understanding and explicit delivery of the true meaning in translation of Chinese legal documents. In doing so, we must shake ourselves off the influence resulting from the traditional ways of thinking in Chinese as much as possible and pay keen attention to the differences between Chinese and English languages at the same time. More importantly, wrong choices of words in translation must be avoided, which often subsequently lead to inaccuracy so as to result in absolutely different legal consequences. For example:

w 陪审团宣告被告谋杀罪不成立。

The jury acquitted the respondent of the charge of murder.

In this sentence, it is not proper to translate “被告” into “respondent”, which should be put into “the accused”. The word “respondent” refers to a defendant in a civil case, especially in a divorce one, while “the accused” means the person charged in a criminal case. As a matter of fact, the translations of “原告” and “被告” into English often vary with the types of cases. For instance, in civil cases, they should be translated into “plaintiff” and “defendant” respectively; in divorce cases, they should be translated into “petitioner” and “respondent”; in maritime case, “libellant” and “libellee”. While in criminal cases, “自诉人/公诉人” and “被告人” should be put into “private/public prosecutor” and “the accused”. Hence, we can conclude that it would be impossible to exactly reflect the statuses of various parties concerned in translation of legal documents without much knowledge of these words.

w 技术转让许可一般分为三种：普通许可、排他许可和独占许可。

The license of technology assignment usually falls into three kinds, i.e., simple license, sole license and exclusive license.

In this sentence, “技术转让” should be rendered into “technology transfer”, because “assignment” normally refers to the transfer of capital and debt, such as assignment of capital or debts. In addition, “独占许可” should be translated into “exclusive license”, which is often mistaken as “sole license”. The three kinds of license set down different rights and obligations for parties concerned, so even a minor error is not allowed at all in translations. Out of the aforesaid examples, we can see that it is by no means easy to achieve preciseness in translation of Chinese legal documents.

3.3 Principle Of Conciseness

Apart from preciseness, the translation of Chinese legal documents should also stick to the principle of conciseness, that is, to give a lot of information in a few words, as the simplest and most concise language is the best for legislation. Therefore, in translation of legal documents, we should strive for simplicity rather than complexity and guard against verbosity arising out of word-for-word translation. For example:

w 英文如与中文有歧义，以中文为主。

a) If the interpretation of the English version is different from that of the Chinese version, the latter shall be taken as the standard.

b) In case of any misinterpretation of the English version, the Chinese one prevails.

c) In case of any discrepancy between the English and the Chinese versions, the latter prevails.

Among the three versions of translations, Version a) renders a clear meaning but lacks conciseness, while Version b) and c) not only conform to English ways of expression but also embody the requirement for conciseness in legal documents.

w 房屋购买人应向房地产登记处办理登记手续。

a) The vendee shall effect registration with the real estate registration office.

b) The vendee shall register with the real estate registry.

Such an example provides us with an opportunity to see how the word-for-word translation affects the conciseness. In practice, we often neglect the conciseness in our English translations for fear that the original sentence can not be fully delivered in meaning. As a result, we do the translation on a word-for-word basis, which causes inconvenient redundancy. Here, we can see clearly that Version b) is better than Version a) in terms of conciseness.

w 约翰•史密斯在中国居住期间没有受过刑事制裁。

a) John Smith has no record of committing offences against the Criminal Law during his living in China.

b) John Smith has no record of criminal offences during his living in China.

From the two translated versions, it is easy to observe that only 6 words in Version b) are used to function as powerfully as the 9 words in Version a) for the same phrase “没有受过刑事制裁”. Which is more preferable, it is self-evident.

3.4 Principle Of Term Consistency

In case of translation of literary works, we tend to express identical concepts or matters with a variety of words and phrases for the sake of diversity. But, for translation of legal documents, it will be not the case. With a view to ensure the constant consistency in legal meanings for identical concepts or matters so as to ward off ambiguity, once a word is selected, it will keep going throughout the whole text no matter how many times it will be repeated. Anyhow, the principle of term consistency should be strictly abided by in translation of Chinese legal documents. For example:

w 前款所指的支付各种应纳税的款项，包括现金支付、汇款支付、转账支付和有价证券或实物支付时折算的金额。

The various kinds of taxable payments referred to in the proceeding paragraph include payments in cash, payments by remittance, payments through transfer accounts and payments in marketable securities or in kind, which are rendered into equivalent amount of money.

As can be seen, the word “payments” are repeated five times in the translation, which just serves to achieve the goal of term consistency. Sometimes, “支付” may be mistranslated into “disbursement”. It is noteworthy that “payment” means “paying or being paid”, while “disbursement” only means “paying out”.

w 被告（宝洁公司）从未以任何方式向原告（雇员）施加精神压力。被告可以拿走原告的文档和他使用的电脑，这是公司的规章制度所规定的，其目的是防止公司的商业秘密被泄露。

…the defendant (P & G) never exerted any spiritual pressure in any form on the claimant. The defendant was free to take away all the plaintiff’s files and the computer he had being using, strictly in accordance with the company’s stipulations, and that such actions were aimed at preventing the company’s trade secrets from being disclosed.

In the translation, what catches our eyes is that two different words “claimant” and “defendant” are applied to refer to the same object “被告” in the original text, which is prohibited in translation of Chinese legal documents. If doing so, “claimant” and “defendant” might be regarded as two separate parties. Similarly, there are two words “infant” and “minor” in English for “未成年人”, which can not be used alternately in the same context in translation. Thus, without due attention to the consistency of term use, it will inevitably lead to ambiguity in translation of Chinese legal documents.

3.5 Principle Of Using Legal Terms

As an academic discipline, the science of law certainly has its own professional terms, namely, legal terms. Each legal term is strictly defined with special implications. In practice, we can cite many occasions in which legal terms are misinterpreted into lay expressions. This principle is hereby emphasized to remind those engaged in translation of legal documents to bear legal terms always in their minds. For example:

w 举证责任由被告承担。

The responsibility of proof rests with the defendant.

In Legal Documents, there is a special term for “举证责任”, i.e., “burden of proof” or “onus of proof”. So this sentence should be placed into:

The onus of proof/burden of proof rests with the defendant.

w 本细则的解释权属于中华人民共和国财政部。

The right of interpreting the Detailed Rules belongs to the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China.

We can note that “belong to” for “属于” is not appropriate in meaning. The correct translation should be as follows:

The right of interpreting the Detailed Rules resides in/is vested in the Ministry of Finance of the People’s Republic of China.

4 Specific approaches In translation of Legal Documents

4.1 Proper Use Of Nominalization Structures

although nominalization structures normally appear in the form of phrases, they are equivalent to a sentence in meaning. So, it is not strange for us to see a wide application of them in English. However, in Legal Documents, we can find a lot more of them in actual use than in common English for the purpose of conciseness and compactness. In addition, the structures of “verb + object” and “subject + predicate” in Chinese are often inter-translatable with nominalization structures in English. Undoubtedly, this provides another effective tool for us to apply in Chinese-English translation of legal documents. Examples can be given as below:

w 国家提倡劳动者参加社会义务劳动，开展劳动竞赛和合理化建议活动。

The state shall advocate the participation of laborers in social voluntary labor and the development of their labor competitions and activities of forwarding rational proposals.

w 劳动合同变更需经双方协商同意，并办理劳动合同变更手续。

Modification of a labor contract shall be implemented through consultation and agreement of the parties involved, procedures for the modification shall be undertaken.

4.2 Proper Use Of Passive-Voice Sentences

As discussed above, Legal Documents are full of passive-voice sentences. Such a phenomenon is serving for the semantic consistency on one aspect, and more importantly, passive-voice sentences involve no personal emotions that satisfy the requirement of legal documents for objectivity and reality. Although passive-voice sentences are also used in common English, they have a particular bearing for Legal Documents That is why I pick it up as a unique feature of Legal Documents for discussion here. With due attention to this point, it is certainly of tremendous benefits for Chinese-English translation of legal documents. For example:

w 劳动合同签订后，应当于一个月内到当地劳动行政部门签证。集体合同订立后，应报送当地劳动行政部门备案。

A concluded labor contract shall be submitted to the local labor administrative department for signature and confirmation within a month from the day when it is concluded; a concluded collective contrast shall be reported to the local administrative department for record.

w 民事诉讼通常是指因违反合同、民事犯罪或侵权所提起的诉讼。

Civil actions generally are brought for breach of a contract, or for a wrong or tort.

4.3 Rational Analysis And Conveying The True Meanings

As we know, translation is a kind of logical thinking activities. On one hand, it is imperative to conduct logical analysis for a thorough understanding of the original text; on the other hand, we can not do without logical analysis in organizing and rendering our translations. With regard to the Chinese-English translation of legal documents, special attentions should be paid to the following aspects:

Conclusion

Legal document professional-specific, meaning Inheritance, grammar, passive, stylistic characteristics of a formal nature, the accuracy in the translation to be maintained, refined and the principles of normative language.

Legal translation is the translation of texts within the field of law. As law is a culture-dependent subject field, legal translation is not a simple task. When translating a text within the field of law, the principles should be kept in mind. The legal system of the source text is structured in a way that suits that culture and this is reflected in the legal language; similarly, the target text is to be read by someone who is familiar with another legal system and its language. Most forms of legal writing, and contracts in particular, seek to establish clearly defined rights and duties for certain individuals. It is essential to ensure precise correspondence of these rights and duties in the source text and in the translation.