Translation theories and pragmatic tests - translation of legal texts.

What is it about?

The central research question for this paper is how and to what extent translation theories affect the translation of legal texts. Using the functional-pragmatic approach as one particular modern translation theory, I investigate translation solutions in the field of lexical and syntactic problems on the basis of a small corpus of legal texts from the National translator's exam in Norway. As a means of control, I compare these solutions with suggested solutions of a small number of candidates preparing themselves for the exam and of some practitioners. The translation brief and the legal force of the particular text influence strongly the translation strategy. Whenever the legal force of the source text supersedes the target text, the strategy of the translatior should be at the 'documentary' (Nord 1989) end of the continuum. My findings need however to be corroborated on the basis of a much bigger corpus including other language pairs than the one from which the examples have been drawn.

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