Legal Translation Studies as Interdiscipline: Scope and Evolution

Abstract

This paper offers an overview of the development of Legal Translation Studies as a major interdiscipline within Translation Studies. It reviews key elements that shape its specificity and constitute the shared ground of its research community: object of study, place within academia, denomination, historical milestones and key approaches. This review elicits the different stages of evolution leading to the field’s current position and its particular interaction with Law. The focus is placed on commonalities as a means to identify distinctive reference points and avenues for further development. A comprehensive categorization of legal texts and the systematic scrutiny of contextual variables are highlighted as pivotal in defining the scope of the discipline and in proposing overarching conceptual and methodological models. Analyzing the applicability of these models and their impact on legal translation quality is considered a priority in order to reinforce interdisciplinary specificity in line with professional needs.

Legal Translation – A Multidimensional Endeavour

“…In closing, I would like to underscore the reasoning behind the multidimensional model offered in this paper. Scholars are increasingly in agreement that legal translation theory ought to be induced from professional practice (e.g., Bocquet as early as 1994;Šarčević 2000;Biel and Engberg 2013;Prieto Ramos 2014). The model aims to make a contribution to describing effective performance in the field of legal translation, while taking into account Toury's recommendation to balance "the mental [and] the environmental, i.e., the situation in and for which the act [of translation] is performed" (2012: 67).…”

Quality Assurance in Legal Translation: Evaluating Process, Competence and Product in the Pursuit of Adequacy

“…As Levý [28, p. 77] pointed out when modern Translation Studies (TS) was in its infancy, ''writing on the problems of translation has any sense at all only if it contributes to our knowledge of the agents which influence the translator's work and its quality.'' This assertion holds true today for research on legal translation quality (as product), and its relation to decision-making and competence-building processes and, ultimately, for the development of LTS itself [42]. Despite the proliferation of scholarly work and theoretical models, translators have been ''guided more or less by their own intuition'' in dealing with legal translation problems [46, p. 47], and methodological problems seem to persist even in institutional contexts where quality assurance procedures are systematically implemented (e.g.…”

“…The search for adequacy guides the entire translation process, from the definition of the overall translation strategy to the verification of conformity of translation decisions to that strategy at the revision stage. Hence, the key challenge addressed is the interrelation of the different legal communicative variables that come into play to achieve and evaluate adequacy, and how to integrate them into a methodological framework that can be useful for the multiplicity of translation scenarios and textual genres comprised by legal translation (see overview of legal text types in [42]). …”

Legal Translation Versus Legal Interpretation. A Legal-Theoretical Perspective

“…The general consensus is that legal translation is, at heart, an interdisciplinary endeavour [see i.e. 8,22,41,42]. There is even some empirical evidence that translators who have a law degree do significantly better at translating legal texts than those who lack professional legal education [30: 210-211, see also: 40: 147].…”