顺应理论视角下中文法律文本英译研究

Chapter 1 Introduction

1.1 Research Background
Translation is defined as a cross-cultural communication, of which the essentialtask and requirement is to accurately understand and express the meaning of theoriginal text. With the ever in-depth reform and opening up, after China’s access intoWTO in particular, a great number of Chinese laws, regulations, legal documents aswell as works of jurisprudence that have been translated into English as legalexchanges between China and foreign countries become increasingly more and morewith each passing day both in scope and depth. Legal language, as a special languagevariety, has its own rules and characteristics, which makes it much more important toresearch into translation theories of legal texts. The translation of Chinese legal textsundertakes the responsibilities of passing the legal cultures of China on to foreignreaders. And any minor mistake may lead to disputes of business, culture evensovereignty, which illustrates the importance of translation of Chinese legal texts.Compared with the Chinese-English (hereafter shortened as C-E) translation ofliterature, science and technology, and commerce, the C-E translation of legal texts,however, is far from satisfactory. Accurate translation of Chinese legal texts exerts afar-reaching impact on the protection and promotion of indigenous and excellent legalcultures, and safeguard of dignity as well as standardization of Chinese legal language,which explains that there have been a surge of researches into C-E translationtechniques carried out by an increasing number of scholars and translatorstheoretically and practically.
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1.2 Purpose of the Study
Currently, the C-E translation of legal texts in translation circles is basically stillat the exploring stage, although there are translation strategies with the guidance ofSkopostheory and functional equivalence theory as well as translation strategies likedomestication and foreignization. All the achievements mentioned above have auniversal sense for the theoretical innovation in the current translation of legal texts,presenting a researching outline and the difficulties in translating legal texts. But ingeneral, the current studies on translation of Chinese legal texts embrace somethingnew but lack highly-summarized theories.This thesis aims to apply the adaptation theory as guidance in C-E translation oflegal texts and attempts to analyze the main aspects to note from four angles, namelycontextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects of adaptability, and dynamicsof adaptability and salience of adaptation processes in a rounded and systematic way.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review

2.1 Previous Studies of Legal Text Translation
Among abundant researches of C-E translation of legal texts, domestication andforeignization strategies, functional equivalence theory and Skopostheory are themostly-applied ones. The following paragraph will summarize the researches into C-Etranslation of legal texts under the guidance of these strategies and theoriesrespectively and analyze their deficiencies in dealing with translation. Raised in 1995 by Venuti, foreignization and domestication are undoubtedly twovery important strategies. In compliance with him, domestication is defined as a wayto adopt a transparent, fluent style to minimize the strangeness of the foreign texts forTL (target language) readers (Venuti, 2004:15). In other words, by domestication, thetranslators are trying to take advantage of language and culture features of targetreaders to replace those of the original, in order to eliminate the estrangement anddifferences between Chinese and English as a way to help the target readersunderstand the work better.Foriegnization is otherwise defined by Shuttleworth and Cowie as "deliberatelybreaks target conventions by retaining something of the foreignness of the original"(Shuttleworth and Cowie 2004:59). To a certain extent, this strategy retains all theinformation of the original like language, culture and styles, trying to convey theinformation to the target readers as authentic as possible without making anyalteration.
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2.2 Previous Studies of Adaptation Theory and Translation
Within the framework of adaptation theory, translation, like all the other speechcommunication is a process of continuous making of choices. In other words, suchchoices of a source text, usage of vocabulary and sentence pattern of the targetlanguage and application of translation strategies are inundated with every stage of theentire translation activity. The aim of selection is to ensure the success ofcommunication since each choice in translation is closely related with communicationneeds.Translation, as a course of choices involving bilingual or multilingual activity ofspeech communication is much more complicated when compared with commonlanguage-selection processes of communication activities. It is not only a process oflanguage choosing, but a multi-tier and complex course of choices in conversionbetween languages. Additionally, the choices of language manifest comprehensivelythe essence of translation and complexity during translation activity, and at the sametime provide a starting point to research into the adaptation's guidance on translation. Recently, there are a growing number of scholars researching into translation incombination with adaptation theory. For instance, Song Zhiping (2004) proposes thattranslation is a kind of conduct of a combination of multiple choices. To choose is toachieve the objective of adaptation from different levels and angles, and hence tocarry out the functions of translation. Each activity of translation has a correspondingaim which needs to be accomplished as much as possible. The choices made intranslation serve to the fulfillment of the aim. This aim, however, is not necessarily anultimate goal, but sometimes a phase in the whole process. Accordingly, there are anumber of related aims in different phases through the entire process. But thetranslators must choose a specific objective in keeping with the very context andevery choice in translation is seen as an endeavor for adaptation to objective.Consequently, we can divide aims into several levels and regard translation as acombination of choices to research into the aims of translation choices and outerfactors that restrict translation choices. Only in this way translation can be analyzedfrom a more macro level.
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Chapter 3 Theoretical Foundation.........14
3.1 Characteristics of Language.........14
3.2 Four Research Angles of the Adaptation Theory.........15
Chapter 4 The Application of Adaptation Theory to TranslatingChines.........23
4.1 An Overview of Legal Text........23
4.2 Contextual Correlates of Adaptability.........29
4.3 Structural Objects of Adaptability and Translation.........32
4.4 Dynamics of Adaptability and Translation of Chinese Legal Text.........37
4.5 The Salience of the Adaptation Processes and Translation.........42
Chapter 5 Conclusion.........46
5.1 Major Findings.........46
5.2 Limitations of the Study.........47
5.3 Suggestions for Further Study..........47

Chapter 4 The Application of Adaptation Theory to Translating Chinese Legal Text

4.1 An Overview of Legal Text
Li Kexin and Zhang Jiahong (2006:2) state that text type, as a matter of fact, isdeemed as a lingual product which gradually becomes standard and hipping throughlong-term application. Accordingly, each text type is used to express a specificpragmatic intention on the part of language user or major functions of specific text.Text type determines the keynote and functions of texts, which explains that a correctgrasp of type of a target text contributes to a better understanding of those of theoriginal. Legal text, as a special type of text, has increasingly proved to be a criticalpart of legal culture. As a result, legal text, serving as a foundation for legalapplication, has exerted an influential impact on strategic options of legal translation.Hence, the features of legal texts become a top priority for the translators.Legal texts and legal language are both conducted to realize normalization andbinding force of law. Legal language is a kind of legally professional jargonparticularly used by legal practitioners, while legal texts composed of legal languagethat hugely differs from other kinds of language, have distinctive characteristics. LiKexin and Zhang Jiahong (2006:11) propose that legal texts could be divided into twocategories: (1) prescriptive legal texts (2) mainly prescriptive and some descriptivelegal texts.Law codes, laws and regulations are classified into the first, the major functionsof which are standardizing human behaviors, setting social involvers' responsibilitiesas well as what they shall or shall not do. The second category is a combination ofprescription and description, which consists of answer brief, judgment, request, casebrief, petition for revision and judicial decisions.
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Conclusion

Along with the deepening opening and reform in China, the economic exchangesbetween China and other economic entities have been much more intense, whichresults in a priority of foreign publicity and a great upsurge in translation of Chineselegal text. But because of the distinctions in terms of legal systems, habits of languageand culture between China and English-speaking countries, the difficulty oftranslation of legal Chinese becomes invincible. Though there are quite a few scholarshaving devoted themselves to the researches in relevant areas and explored a series oftheories and methods for guidance, a systematic and proper mechanism of translationof legal Chinese has not yet developed. For this reason, all kinds of difficulties comeacross by the translators have prevented the promotion of Chinese laws to the world.However, the appearance of adaptation theory has provided a brand-new,systematic and appropriate direction for development for C-E translation of legal texts.As a comprehensive pragmatic theory, adaptation theory proposes and theorizes aview that language using is a process of constant choices. And translation of legalChinese as an interlingual communication of Chinese and English will definitelyinvolve language choices. So the thesis tries to analyze the translation from a newperspective--a perspective of adaptation theory. By investigating all levels of legallanguage, such as contextual correlates of adaptability, structural objects ofadaptability, dynamics of adaptability and the salience of the adaptation processes, thethesis presents a rounded interpretation of translation of legal Chinese. Morecomprehensive and systematic than former theories for translation of legal Chinese,adaptation theory is not only a new research angle, but has enormous directivefunctions for the translation of Chinese legal texts.
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