| Gideon Toury, well-known western translation theorist, is a leading figure in descriptive translation study. Based on case studies,Gideon Toury has pointed out that translation is a norm governed activity, and the translator, from selecting the text, the translation strategy to the translation skills, is constrained by many factors or conventions, such as social conventions and cultural elements or norms. Accordingly, he categorized three kinds of norms: preliminary norms, initial norms and operational norms.Take legal translation as an example, it is not only a process of linguistic transcoding, but also an act of communication within the mechanism of law, involving legal cultures, legal mechanisms, legislation intention of the original legal text, legal drafter and other factors. Therefore, legal translators are constrained by the legal culture and legal mechanism of both the source language and the target language. Considering the particular features of legal translation, the author attempts to apply Toury's theory of translational norms into legal translation study in this thesis so as to provide guidance to legal translation practice.The thesis consists of three chapters. Chapter one gives an overview of Toury's theory of translational norms. Chapter two discusses the features of legal texts and legal translation, the nature of legal translation, and the nature of legal translation from the perspective of translational norm theory. In Chapter three, the thesis studies the translation practice of The Contract Law of P.R.C. under the guidance of Toury's translational norms through examining the norms to which the legal translator conforms in the process of translation. At last, the conclusion is drawn that legal translation is produced in accordance with social, cultural and linguistic norms, in this way, Toury's theory of translational norms has instructive significance to legal translation practice, and legal translation is the product of social and cultural norms.
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