The Ashgate Handbook of Legal Translation

This volume investigates advances in the field of legal translation both from a theoretical and practical perspective, with professional and academic insights from leading experts in the field. Part I of the collection focuses on the exploration of legal translatability from a theoretical angle. Covering fundamental issues such as equivalence in legal translation, approaches to legal translation and the interaction between judicial interpretation and legal translation, the authors offer contributions from philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives. Part II focuses on the analysis of legal translation from a practical perspective among different jurisdictions such as China, the EU and Japan, offering multiple and pluralistic viewpoints. This book presents a collection of studies in legal translation which not only provide the latest international research findings among academics and practitioners, but also furnish us with a new approach to, and new insights into, the phenomena and nature of legal translation and legal transfer. The collection provides an invaluable reference for researchers, practitioners, academics and students specialising in law and legal translation, philosophy, sociology, linguistics and semiotics. Cover 1 Contents 6 List of Figures 8 List of Tables 10 Notes on the Editors 12 Notes on Contributors 14 Foreword 20 Acknowledgements 24 Introduction 26 PART I LEGAL TRANSLATION IN THEORY 38 1 Translation vs. Decoding Strategies in Law and Economics Scholarship 40 2 Cultural Transfer and Conceptualization in Legal Discourse 52 3 Lost in Translation? 68 4 Translation Equivalence as Legal Fiction 82 5 Trying to the See the Wood Despite the Trees 96 6 Minimal Unit of Legal Translation vs. Minimal Unit of Thought 114 7 Parameters for Problem-Solving in Legal Translation 146 8 Structuring a Legal Translation Course 160 PART II LEGAL TRANSLATION IN PRACTICE 178 9 EU Legislative Texts and Translation 180 10 Phraseology in Legal Translation 202 11 Translating International Arbitration Norms into the Italian Language and Culture 218 12 Translating Domestic Legislation 234 13 Translation of Japanese Laws and Regulations 248 14 Important Translation Strategies Used in Legal Translation 262 15 On the Translation of the Criminal Procedure Law of the PRC 280 16 The New Czech Civil Code - Lessons from Legal Translation 288 17 Multilevel Translation Analysis of a Key Legal Concept 324 Afterword 338 Index 342 This collection investigates the latest advances in the field of legal translation and provides an invaluable reference volume for all academics and practitioners in the field. The authors offer philosophical, rhetorical, terminological and lexicographical perspectives and explore a range of topics from both theoretical and practical positions.