| The special social function of law enables legal language to shape legal terms. Legal terms translation is, the same as other English for specific purposes, a type of bilingual research, which touches upon two aspects, one is language, and the other is culture. Legal cultural differences comprise the differences between social systems, legal systems, legal cultural traditions, cultural psychology and legal thought etc. To some extent, legal culture focuses on legal terms.Legal terms both in English and Chinese have specific legal meanings. In order to abide by the formality and gravity of legal language and to achieve the effect of equivalence, translators are supposed to search for the equivalent terms or near equivalent terms translated from the source text into the target text. However the existence of legal cultural differences leads to the phenomenon of non-equivalences. If translators comprehend legal terms merely literally from the literal meaning of words but ignoring the legal cultural differences would lead to ambiguity or misconstruction. Therefore, precision of legal terms translation is concerned with the quality of all types of legal documents, even the exercise of power and personal interests of civilians, and it is of vital importance.This thesis systematically analyzes the cultural differences between the Chinese legal system and common law system, summarizes the influence of legal cultural differences upon translators in the process of E-C legal terms translation, and illustrates main problems that translators encounter with. With the reference of equivalence theory proposed by Susan Sarcevic, the author, by means of examples of legal terms translation, analyzes the translation strategies of near equivalence and partial equivalence in legal terms translation on the basis of legal cultural differences. The highlight is that the author concludes three translation strategies in the cases of non-equivalence to further stimulate the development of legal terms translation.The thesis is presented in five chapters. Chapter One is introduction. The author briefly introduces the significance, object of the research, research methodology, data and thesis structure. Chapter Two is literature review presenting previous studies upon legal cultures, legal terms and E-C legal terms translation at home and abroad. Chapter Three elaborates on the legal cultural differences between the legal system of China and common law system from three perspectives, and analyzes main problems that translators likely encounter with. Chapter Four is the main part of thesis. The author concisely reviews the theory of equivalence and its application to legal terms translation, respectively illustrates the phenomena of near equivalence, partial equivalence and translation strategies. In accordance with current studies of legal terms, in case of non-equivalence or partial equivalence, the author concludes three feasible translation strategies, including paraphrase, semantic compensation, neologism, hoping they would alleviate the influence of legal cultural differences upon legal terms translation. Chapter Five is the conclusion of thesis. |
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