Legal Translation

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is is a contribution from Handbook of Translation Studies. Volume 1.
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Legal translation
Deborah Cao
Grith University
Legal translation is a type of specialist or technical translation*, a translational activity that
involves language of and related to law and legal process. Legal translation refers to the
rendering of legal texts from the Source Language (SL) into the Target Language (TL).
Legal translation can be classied according to dierent criteria. For instance, legal
translation can be categorised into the following classes according to the subject matter
of the SL texts: (1) translating domestic statutes and international treaties; (2) translating
private legal documents; (3) translating legal scholarly works, and (4) translating case law.
Legal translation can also be divided according to the status of the SL texts: (1) translating
enforceable law, e.g., statutes; and (2) translating non-enforceable law, e.g., legal scholarly
works. As well, legal translation can be classied according to the functions of legal texts
in the SL: (1) primarily prescriptive, e.g., laws, regulations, codes, contracts, treaties, and
conventions; (2) primarily descriptive and also prescriptive, e.g., judicial decisions and
legal instruments that are used to carry on judicial and administrative proceedings such
as actions, pleadings, briefs, appeals, requests, petitions etc; and (3) purely descriptive, e.g.,
scholarly works written by legal scholars such as legal opinions, law textbooks, and articles,
the authority of which varies in dierent legal systems (Sarcevic 1997: 11). Legal translation
can also be classied in the light of the purposes of the TL texts: (1) normative purpose,
i.e., the production of equally authentic legal texts in bilingual and multilingual jurisdic-
tions of domestic laws and international legal instruments and other laws; (2) informative
purpose, e.g., the translation of statutes, court decisions, scholarly works and other types
of legal documents if the purpose of the translation is to provide information to the target
readers; and (3) general legal or judicial purpose (see Cao 2007). In short, legal translation
is used as a generic term to cover both the translation of law and other communications
in legal settings.
1. Sources of diculty in legal translation
It is oen said that legal translation is dicult and complex. In essence, the nature of law and
legal language contributes to the complexity and diculty in legal translation. is is com-
pounded by complications arising from crossing two languages and legal systems in transla-
tion. Accordingly, sources of legal translation diculty include the systemic dierences in
law, linguistic as well as cultural dierences. All these are closely related (see Cao 2007).

© 2010. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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192 Deborah Cao
First of all, legal language is a technical language, but legal language is not a universal
technical language but one that is tied to a national legal system (Weisog 1987: 203), dier-
ent from the language used in pure science, say mathematics or physics. Law and legal lan-
guage are system bound, that is, they reect the history, evolution and culture, and above all,
the law of a specic legal system. Law as an abstract concept is universal as it is reected in
written laws and customary norms of conduct in dierent countries. However, legal systems
are peculiar to the societies in which they have been formulated. Each society has dierent
cultural, social and linguistic structures developed separately according to its own condi-
tioning. Legal concepts, legal norms and application of laws dier in each individual soci-
ety reecting the dierences in that society. Legal translation involves translation from one
legal system into another. Unlike pure science, law remains a national phenomenon. Each
national law constitutes an independent legal system with its own terminological appara-
tus, underlying conceptual structure, rules of classication, sources of law, methodological
approaches and socio-economic principles (Sarcevic 1997: 13). is has implications for
legal translation when communication is channelled across dierent languages, cultures and
legal systems.
Law is culturally and jurisdictionally specic. ere are dierent legal systems or fami-
lies, such as the Romano-Germanic Law (Continental Civil Law) and the Common Law,
the two most inuential legal families in the world. As David and Brierley (1985: 19) state,
each legal system or family has its own characteristics and “a vocabulary used to express
concepts, its rules are arranged into categories, it has techniques for expressing rules and
interpreting them, it is linked to a view of the social order itself which determines the way
in which the law is applied and shapes the very function of law in that society”. Due to the
dierences in historical and cultural development, the elements of the source legal system
cannot be simply transposed into the target legal system (Sarcevic 1997: 13). us, the main
challenge to the legal translator is the incongruency of legal systems in the SL and TL. As
a result, the systemic dierences between dierent legal families are a major source of dif-
culty in translation.
In addition, linguistic diculties also arise in translation from the dierences found
in the dierent legal cultures and legal systems. Legal translation is distinguished from
other types of technical translation* that convey universal information. In this sense, legal
translation is sui generis. Each legal language is the product of a special history and culture.
It follows, for example, that the characteristics of la langue de droit in French do not neces-
sarily apply to legal English. Nor do those of the English language of the law necessarily
apply to French.
A basic linguistic diculty in legal translation is the absence of equivalent termino-
logy* across dierent languages. is requires constant comparison between the legal sys-
tems of the SL and TL. In terms of legal style, legal language is a highly specialised language
use with its own style. e languages of the Common Law and Civil Law systems are fun-
damentally dierent in style. Legal traditions and legal culture have had a lasting impact

© 2010. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Legal translation 193
on the way law is written. Written legal language thus reects the essential elements of a
legal culture and confronts the legal translator with its multi-faceted implications (Smith
1995: 190–191).
Lastly, cultural dierences present another source of diculty in legal translation.
Law is an expression of the culture, and it is expressed through legal language. As pointed
out, “[e]ach country has its own legal language representing the social reality of its spe-
cic legal order” (Sarcevic 1985: 127). Legal translators must overcome cultural barriers
between the SL and TL societies when reproducing a TL version of a law originally writ-
ten for the SL reader. In this connection, Weston (1983: 207) writes that the most impor-
tant general characteristic of any legal translation is that an unusually large proportion
of the text is culture-specic. e existence of dierent legal cultures and traditions is a
major reason why legal languages are dierent from one another, and will remain so. It is
also a reason why legal language within each national legal order is not and will not be the
same as ordinary language.
2. Translating dierent legal texts
Legal translation involves dierent legal text types. e common legal text types include
private legal documents, domestic legislation, and international legal instruments.
2.1 Translating private legal documents
Private legal documents are those that are draed and used by lawyers in their daily prac-
tice on behalf of their clients. ey may include deeds, contracts and other agreements,
leases, wills and other legal texts such as statutory declaration, power of attorney, state-
ments of claims or pleadings and other court documents and advice from lawyers to cli-
ents. e translation of these documents constitutes the bulk of actual translation work for
many legal translation practitioners.
Private legal documents oen follow certain established patterns and rules in a par-
ticular jurisdiction. Agreements and contracts, which are among the most commonly
translated private legal documents from and into English, are oen written in similar
styles. Such documents, for instance, draed in English, oen contain old or archaic words
and expressions reecting the old draing style, where one frequently nds words such
as ‘aforementioned’, ‘hereinaer’, ‘hereinabove’, ‘hereunder’, ‘said’, ‘such’, etc. Another com-
mon usage is word strings, for instance, ‘restriction, restraint, prohibition or interven-
tion’, ‘change, modication or alteration’, ‘document or agreement as amended, annotated,
supplemented, varied or replaced’, ‘arrangements, agreements, representations or under-
takings’. Some describe these collocations as wordiness or verbosity. Still another common
linguistic feature found in private legal documents is that sentences are typically long and
complex, and passive structures are oen extensively used.

© 2010. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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194 Deborah Cao
2.2 Translating domestic legislation
Under this category, there are two types of situation where municipal statutes are trans-
lated. e rst type is found in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions (see Multilingualism
and translation*) where two or more languages are the ocial legal languages. Examples
include Canada, Switzerland, Hong Kong, and South Africa. e second type of translated
legislation is found in any monolingual country where its laws are translated into a foreign
language or languages for information purpose, for instance, the US and China.
Generally speaking, modern statutes consist of a generic structure and standard form
with the following common elements:
title –
date –
preamble –
the enacting words –
substantive body: the parts, articles and sections –
schedules or forms –
One prominent linguistic feature of legislative texts is the illocutionary force. A legis lative
text as a rule-enacting document is a speech act with illocutionary forces (see Kurzon
1986). is pragmatic feature is a crucial and prominent linguistic aspect of statutes, for
both domestic or municipal statutory instruments and multilateral legal instruments. It is
universally important as the basic function of law is regulating human behaviour and rela-
tions by setting out obligation, permission and prohibition in society. ese are expressed
in language through the use of words such as ‘may’ for conferring a right, privilege or power,
‘shall’ for imposing an obligation to do an act, and ‘shall not’ or ‘may not’ for imposing an
obligation to abstain from doing an act.
2.3 Translating international legal instruments
e translation of legal instruments in international or supranational bodies such as the
United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) forms a special area of legal trans-
lation practice (see Cao 2007). Such translational activities can entail translating multilin-
gual documents such as international instruments of the UN involving several languages,
and translating bilateral treaties involving two languages. e translation of such legal
documents of international nature as opposed to domestic laws has its own idiosyncrasy as
well as sharing the characteristics of translating law in general.
One important principle in the practice of multilingual law is the principle of equal
authenticity, that is, all the ocial language texts of an international treaty, whether trans-
lated or not, are equally authentic, having equal legal force. As pointed out, the importance
attached to the principle of equal authenticity was intended to confer undisputable authority

© 2010. John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Legal translation 195
on each of the authentic texts, de facto eliminating the inferior status of authoritative transla-
tions (Sarcevic 1997: 199). is also carries with it the high level requirements for accuracy
on the part of the legal translator.
References
Cao, Deborah. 2007. Translating Law. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
David, René & Brierley, John. 1985. Major Legal Systems in the World Today. London: Stevens.
Kurzon, Dennis. 1986. It Is Hereby Performed… Explorations in Legal Speech Acts. Amsterdam &
Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
Sarcevic, Susan. 1997. New Approach to Legal Translation. e Hague: Kluwer Law International.
Smith, S.A. 1995. “Cultural Clash: Anglo-American Case Law and German Civil Law in Translation.”
In Translation and the Law, M. Morris (ed.), 179–200. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Weisog, W.E. 1987. “Problems of Legal Translation.” Swiss Reports presented at the XIIth Interna-
tional Congress of Comparative Law, 179–218. Zürich: Schulthess.
Weston, M. 1983. “Problems and Principles in Legal Translation.” e Incorporate Linguist 22 (4):
207–211.
Further reading
Alcaraz, E. & Hughes, B. 2002. Legal Translation Explained. Manchester: St Jerome.
Cao, Deborah. 2007. Translating Law. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.
Houbert, Frederic. 2005. Guide Pratique de la Traduction Juridique: Anglais/Français. Paris: La Maison
du Dictionnaire.
Sarcevic, Susan. 1997. New Approach to Legal Translation. e Hague: Kluwer Law International.