With contributions from world-class specialists this first book-length work looks at translation issues in forensic linguistics, where accuracy and cultural understandings play a prominent part in the legal process.

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.

This long needed reference on the innumerable and increasing ways that the law intersects with translation and interpreting features essays by scholars and professions from the United States, Australia, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, and Sweden. The essays range from sophisticated treatments of historical and hence philosophical variations in concept and practice to detailed practical advice on self-education. Essays show a particular concern for the challenges of courtroom discourse when the parties not only use different languages but operate from different cultural and legal traditions.

Legal language differs from ordinary language, not just in vocabulary, but also in its morphology, syntax, semantics and other linguistic features. This book explores the differences in such features, in addition to investigating the description, development, distinctive features, characteristics, difficulties and problems of drafting legal English and Arabic texts within their respective legal contexts. Particular attention is given throughout to the characteristic features of legal language that usually tend to be ignored in academic analysis. As such, the book will be of interest to both lawyers and linguists, and will help foster a greater understanding of the features of legal language and how inaccuracies can be avoided.

This book provides a state-of-the-art account of past and current research in the interface between linguistics and law. It outlines the range of legal areas in which linguistics plays an increasing role and describes the tools and approaches used by linguists and lawyers in this vibrant new field. Through a combination of overview chapters, case studies, and theoretical descriptions, the volume addresses areas such as the history and structure of legal languages, its meaning and interpretation, multilingualism and language rights, courtroom discourse, forensic identification, intellectual property and linguistics, and legal translation and interpretation. Encyclopedic in scope, the handbook includes chapters written by experts from every continent who are familiar with linguistic issues that arise in diverse legal systems, including both civil and common law jurisdictions, mixed systems like that of China, and the emerging law of the European Union.

Translation is subject to a complex and unique set of legal rules that govern its various practical and intellectual aspects. These rules derive from very different legal areas, such as intellectual property and labour law. While useful from a strictly legal point of view, the heterogeneity of sources operates as a major hurdle in terms of understanding the overall legal framework within which translation operates. This book offers a general overview of the legal rules applicable to different aspects of translation, allowing translators and other interested parties to form a broad and coherent picture of the rules applicable in this area. It draws on the provisions of the main legal systems of the world, as well as the basic international agreements relevant in this area, thus offering both a comparative perspective of the legal issues involved and a guide to relevant national legal rules. In addition to a description and analysis of the legal issues and rules involved, the book also presents hypothetical cases, with a discussion of the problems they pose and possible solutions. It explains the theoretical structure of the rules under discussion as well as their practical implications. The language and methodology of the book are sufficiently accessible to allow lawyers, translators and those who require translation work but do not have a formal legal background to follow the arguments presented.

This book brings together the top international sales law scholars from twenty-three countries to review the Convention on Contracts for International Sale of Goods (CISG) and its role in the unification of global sales law. It reviews the substance of CISG rules and analyzes alternative interpretations. A comparative analysis is given of how countries have accepted, interpreted, and applied the CISG. Theoretical insights are offered into the problems of uniform laws, the CISG's role in bridging the gap between the common and civil legal traditions, and the debate over good faith in CISG jurisprudence. The book reviews case law relating to the interpretation and application of the provisions of the CISG; analyzes how it has been recognized and implemented by national courts and arbitral tribunals; offers insights into problems of uniformity of application of an international sales convention; compares the CISG with the English Sale of Goods Act and places it in the context of other texts of UNCITRAL; and analyzes the CISG from the practitioner's perspective.

This book is a survey of how law, language and translation overlap with concepts, crimes and conflicts. It is a transdisciplinary survey exploring the dynamics of colonialism and the globalization of crime. Concepts and conflicts are used here to mean ‘conflicting interpretations’ engendering real conflicts. Beginning with theoretical issues and hermeneutics in chapter 2, the study moves on to definitions and applications in chapter 3, introducing cattle stealing as a comparative theme and global case study in chapter 4. Cattle stealing is also known in English as ‘rustling, duffing, raiding, stock theft, lifting and predatorial larceny.’ Crime and punishment are differently perceived depending on cultures and legal systems: ‘Captain Starlight’ was a legendary ‘duffer’; in India ‘lifting’ a sacred cow is a sacrilegious act. Following the globalization of crime, chapter 5 deals with human rights, ethnic cleansing and genocide. International treaties in translation set the scene for two world wars. Introducing ‘unequal treaties’ (e.g. Hong Kong), chapter 6 highlights disasters caused by treaties in translation. Cases feature American Indians (the ‘trail of broken treaties’), Maoris (Treaty of Waitangi) and East Africa (Treaty of Wuchale).

Arabic-English-Arabic Legal Translation provides a groundbreaking investigation of the issues found in legal translation between Arabic and English. Drawing on a contrastive-comparative approach, it analyses parallel authentic legal documents in both Arabic and English to examine the features of legal discourse in both languages and uncover the different translation techniques used. In so doing, it addresses the following questions: What are the features of English and Arabic legal texts? What are the similarities and differences of English and Arabic legal texts? What are the difficult areas of legal translation between English and Arabic legal texts? What are the techniques for translating these difficult areas on the lexical and syntactic levels? Features include: A thorough description of the features of legal translation in both English and Arabic, drawing on empirical new research, corpus data analysis and strategic two-way comparisons between source texts and target texts Coverage of a broad range of topics including an outline of the chosen framework for data analysis, a historical survey of legal discourse developments in both Arabic and English and detailed analyses of legal literature at both the lexical and syntactic levels Attention to common areas of difficulty such as Shariah Law terms, archaic terms and model auxiliaries Many examples and excerpts from a wide selection of authentic legal documents, reinforced by practical discussion points, exercises and practice drills to encourage active engagement with the material and opportunities for hands-on learning. Wide-ranging, scholarly and thought-provoking, this will be a valuable resource for advanced undergraduates and postgraduates on Arabic, Translation Studies and Comparative Linguistics courses. It will also be essential reading for translation professionals and researchers working in the field.

Legal Translation and Bilingual Law Drafting in Hong Kong presents a systematic account from a cross-disciplinary perspective of the activities of legal translation and bilingual law drafting in the bilingual international city of Hong Kong and its interaction with Mainland China and Taiwan in the use of legal terminology. The study mainly examines the challenges posed to English-Chinese translation in the past three decades by elaborate drafting and terminological equivalence, and offers educational and research solutions. Its primary goals are to create legal Chinese that naturally accommodates common law concepts and statutes from the English legal system and to reconcile Chinese legal terms from the different legal systems adopted by Hong Kong, Mainland China and Taiwan. The new directions in legal translation and bilingual law drafting in Hong Kong will have implications for other Chinese regions and for the world. The book is intended for scholars, researchers, teachers and students of legal translation and legal linguistics, legal translators, lawyers and legal practitioners who are engaged in translation, as well as all persons who are interested in legal language and legal translation.