Amplification And Ellipsis In Legal Chinese Translation: In The Perspective Of Redundancy Theory

Along with economic globalization and integration of the world,legal translation,serving as a bridge over the chasm between China and the outside world, plays a more and more essential role in international exchange and cooperation. Although at present the demand for legal translation is increasing,the research on legal translation is comparatively undeveloped,still less the accomplishments.As legal text possesses distinctive characteristics,legal translation is interdisciplinary in nature,which requires the translator not only exerts competent translation skills but also has profound legal as well as linguistic knowledge.Rooted on the redundancy principle in Information Theory,the present thesis goes further to conduct the study on criteria of legal Chinese-English translation by way of probing into the features of legal language.On the basis of the unique features of legal language,the author of the present thesis sets up two criteria for legal translation:faithfulness and effective communication function.Considering that the style of the legal text may influence its legal effect,the criterion of faithfulness is required to be faithful not only to the contents of the source text but also to the style of the source text.According to Susan Sarcevic,legal translation should be considered not only as a process of lingual transcoding,but also as an act of communication in the mechanism of law.Thus the principle of achieving effective communication function should also be one of the criteria to value a legal translation.Redundant information,an integral part in language usage,is a prevailing phenomenon in daily communication.It is well-known that English and Chinese nationalities differ from each other not only in the usage of general language but also in legal language and legal culture.Under normal circumstances,the channel of the receptor of the target text is narrower than that of the source text and redundant information in the source text is not compatible with the channel of the receptors of the target text,thus the problem of unbalance of redundancy in legal translation appears.Therefore,redundant information in the source text should be adjusted to match with the channel of the receptors of the target text so that it can pass through the target receptors' channel without difficulty.With respect to adjustment of redundant information in legal Chinese translation,this thesis will mainly focus on strategies of amplification and ellipsis.The purpose of the present endeavor is to find a proper way to tackle the issue of redundant information in legal translation so as to render directions for future theoretical research and translation practice.