Fuzziness In Legislative English And Its Equivalent Translation

This thesis analyzes the use of fuzziness in legislative English and its equivalent translation from English to Chinese. It is well known that precision is a very important requirement for the legislative language. However, we could find that there are many fuzzy expressions existing in the statues. In addition, the language used by people in the court is also not as specific as we thought. This phenomenon seems to be paradoxical. But these fuzzy expressions are necessary and inevitable for the application of legislative language. To certain degree, the fuzziness makes the statues more precision and more practicable. Why? The author of this thesis tries her best to answer this question by analyzing the fuzziness in legislative language. The author summarizes the causes and functions of fuzziness in legislative English language and discusses the translation of the fuzzy expression from English to Chinese. The author holds that the equivalent translation for the fuzziness in legislative English is very important.In the first part of this thesis, the author makes an introduction to the fuzzy sets theory and its applications in law, and distinguishes the conception of fuzziness from some similar conceptions, such as, ambiguity and vagueness. A clear conception of fuzziness is displayed. In the second part of this thesis, the author introduces the characteristics of legislative language, and the relation of fuzzy language and legislative English. By illustrating real cases and quoting articles from legal documents, the author expounds the causes of the fuzziness in legislative English and the importance of fuzziness in law. At last, the author explains the necessity of fuzziness in legislative language.In the third part, the author analyzes the factors that have influences on the translation of legislative language. The author points out the problems...