A genre-based approach to legal translation

Official documents, such as birth or marriage certificates, are usually among the most frequently translated specialized texts because of their extensive public needs. They are classified as legal documents, for at least two reasons. First, they are used for questions connected with the law, as an identity card or marital status, and are prepared more often in the form of certified translations. Secondly, they share many typical formal characteristics of other legal documents and, at the same time, they have specialized texts.

In recent years, the demand for legal translation has been growing at an incredible rate. This is connected with the development of economic international relations and globalization. A superficial look at the volume of official documents that required to be translated shows a striking trend in this kind of translation. The reasons for this trend are enormous and cover the requirement of accompanying documentation for education and profession abroad and mass mobility of people around the world. Thus, the volume of legal translations increases, translators have to work more quickly, efficiently and efficiently.

Identification of legal genres distributed between parallel official documents offers a feasible alternative for translators who are willing to explore the nature of certain texts with which they deal, and also concentrate on the increased understanding and functionality of translation in the original document.

The concept of genre in translation studies

Usually defined as research of located linguistic behavior in legalized academic or professional settings, the analysis of the genre has its own decisive features for the purpose of translation.

The genre analysis shows a genuine interest in using the language to achieve communicative goals, rather than a detailed expansion, testing from one linguistic structure to another. Therefore, this is not just an extension of the linguistic formalism.

The genre theory exploits all aspects of the sociocognitive knowledge located in disciplinary cultures to analyze the construction, interpretation and use of linguistic communication in order to achieve non-linguistic purposes.

Fortunately, the relevance of the genre and analysis of the genre, the issue is not widely studied in translation and practice theory in recent years, especially in the linguistic textual approach to translation. This approach helped to increase the sensitivity to linguistic copying at various levels and thus shows the complexity of translation competence.

In exploring the intricate relationships between genres and translation, attention was mainly focused on types of texts, not genres. The study made it possible to obtain three corresponding language sizes and formulate three definite types of texts, i.e. informative, expressive, and nominal. These three types of texts, in turn, are associated with three specific methods of translation: direct, identification and adaptive.

Identification of genres is useful for translators, as it helps them focus on specific needs and functions, and look further, and deeper into the nature of specific texts.

Legal genres in translation

According to Alkaras and Hughes, the ‘genre’ or ‘type of text’ refers to each of the specific classes of a textual feature of a given scientific community or professional association and differs from each other by certain features of the dictionary, forms and style that are perfectly defined for the function and are customary in their function nature. The texts belonging to this genre show, at least, the following stylistic and formal features:

The general communicative function is expressed through the same performative verb. For example, all injunctions in the form of orders that must be strictly enforced include whether they are committing an act or abstaining from a particular action. Such peremptory nature of the order is thus embedded in the text in the form of a warning, which looks like a warning about the consequences of non-compliance.

Such a macrostructure, that is, a format or organizational charts. For example, all judgments are structured in at least three main sections: facts, as found, the corresponding law, after which a decision follows.

Such an inconsistent way of development of the macrostructure (narrative, descriptive, obligatory, and desirable) and similar methods of conversation, are aimed at meeting the expectations of the conversation of the recipient or the addressee.

The general lexical and syntactic arrangement of the material and a single set of functional units and formal characteristics, for example, in charters and other legislative texts, the use of indefinite pronouns, passive forms and impersonal verb form

A genre-based approach to legal translation обновлено: November 29, 2017 автором: azurit