Key Features:
- Addresses the complexities of translating legal terminology
- Covers both the legal and linguistic issues of translating law
- Detailed analysis of the translation of contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments
Summary:
The translation of law has played an integral part in the interaction among nations in history and is playing a greater role in our increasingly interconnected world today. The book investigates legal translation in its many facets as an intellectual pursuit and a profession. It examines legal translation from an interdisciplinary perspective, covering theoretical and practical grounds and linguistic as well as legal issues. It analyses legal translation competence and various types of legal texts including contracts, statutes and multilateral legal instruments, presents a comparative analysis of the Common Law and the Civil Law and examines the case law from Canada, Hong Kong and the European Court of Justice. It attempts to demonstrate that translating law is a complex act that can enrich law, culture and human experience as a whole.
Review:
In the style of a true interpreter, Deborah Cao presents an impressive and broad-ranging overview of legal translation practices which is both international and interdisciplinary. The author’s very unusual combination of linguistic and translation competence coupled with an in-depth knowledge of the legal world and first-hand experience of some of the major legal systems around the globe provides that very rare and invaluable quality of true dialogues between cultures and disciplines.
Cristina Marinetti, University of Warwick, The International Journal of Speech, Language and the Law Vol 15:1 2008 Translating Law is a very welcome addition to the few books that tackle the huge field of law from a translator’s point of view. Dr Cao is one of those rare individuals who demonstrates not only thorough knowledge of the theory and practice of both translation and law, but is able to marshal and interweave these two subjects in an exemplary interdisciplinary approach. For such a concise, affordable book the wealth of scholarship, analysis and practical examples contained within it is impressive. In short, this will be a very welcome addition to any institution that teaches legal translation.
Pieta Monks, London Metropolitan University, in JosTrans Issue 09 - January 2008
Author Biography:
Deborah Cao is affiliated with the School of Languages and Linguistics and the Socio-Legal Research Centre, Griffith University, Australia. Originally trained and qualified as a United Nations simultaneous interpreter, she was educated in China and Australia. She holds PhD in translation studies and LL.B (Hons), and has published in the areas of translation studies, legal translation, semiotics and philosophical and linguistic analysis of Chinese law and legal culture. Her books include Chinese Law: A Language Perspective (Ashgate, 2004), Translation at the United Nations (in Chinese, 2006, China Foreign Translation and Publishing Corporation, co-authored with Zhao Xingmin), and Interpretation, Law and Construction of Meaning (Springer, 2006, a joint editor).
Readership Level:
Postgraduate, Research / Professional, Undergraduate
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