A Study Of Equivalence Shortages In E-C Translation Of Common Words With Specific Legal Meanings Based On Dynamic Equivalence Theory

Legal translation has a long history. Although the translation of legal documents is one of the oldest and most important activities in the world, both translation theorists and jurists have long neglected it. For a long time, legal translation has been regarded by translation theorists merely as one of the branches of special purpose translation, or a third-class branch of translation studies.With the enlarging function of legal translation in social life and international communication, legal communication, legal translation gets more and more attention from translation theorists in the academe. More and more scholars are devoted to the research on legal translation, and have got plentiful achievements. However, most researches just talk in generalities, or just analyze the concrete translation errors some legal terms, and give the correct translations to them. Very few attempts have been made in applying the translation theories to the solution of practical problems of translation of legal terminologies.Through literature review and translation practice, the author found that the phenomenon of equivalence shortages in legal terminology translation is unavoidable. Upon acknowledging the general background knowledge of definition, types and characteristics of legal terms, the author concludes three types of concrete problems in legal terms translation, namely, translation error or translating without real understanding, non-equivalence of the meaning of legal terms, and literal translation, which cannot be accepted by the receivers of the target language. And then analyzes the various reasons for the formation of the problems from the following four aspects: the difference between legal systems, the difference between cultural backgrounds, the difference between social systems, and the difference between languages.As for the equivalence shortages, the author proposes four compensation strategies from the perspective of Nida's dynamic equivalence theory. They are: literal translation with post-explanation and pre-modification, paraphrasing, neutral terms and creating new words. Some cases from the book《1940年美国投资公司立法》(2007)are given to support the points.By suggesting a worthy theoretical framework for legal terminology translation, this study makes an effort to associate dynamic equivalence theory with legal terminology translation practice. Dynamic equivalence theory is adapted for analysis of legal terminology translation phenomena, which may offer an alternative to traditional translation. And at the same time, by developing an operable dynamic translation procedure, this study tries to make a contribution to the legal translation practice. Whereas, some of viewpoints are still not that mature, here, the article is just for reference and inspiring the reader to think over.