A Report On The Chinese Translation Of Family Law And Custom Law In Asia: A Contemporary Legal Perspective(Excerpts)

This report is based on the English-Chinese translation of the Introduction and Chapter Seven of Asian Family Law and Customary Law: A Modern Legal Perspective,a book by David C.Buxbaum.The selected section contains 11,000 words and is essential for understanding family and customary law in Asia.Although published in 1968,this work remains untranslated,and the translated version is valuable to Chinese legal scholars who want to understand the development of Thai family law.It is an essential reference for the improvement of family law in China.The selected section is divided into two segments,focusing on Thailand’s ancient and modern family law.The modern family law section updates traditional practices influenced by customary law.This legal text contains both prescriptive and descriptive content,which makes translating this legal text challenging.The translator must strive for linguistic accuracy,understand the text in context,and convey the author’s intent to the target readers in an acceptable manner.The translator used Jef Verschueren’s Adaptation Theory to guide this translation practice to meet these challenges.This theory includes three levels of adaptation:contextual correlates of adaptability,structural objects of adaptability,and dynamics of adaptability.First,the translator investigated how adaptability relates to the context of communication,examining three dimensions: the physical,social,and mental worlds.Next,the translator analyzed the linguistic context,including contextual cohesion and sequencing.Second,the translator adapted the structural objects of adaptability,such as words and sentences,using Ant Conc to analyze and summarize the source text.The translator used qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze typical modal verbs,legal terms,and conditional and passive sentences.In conclusion,translating this legal text requires attention to both linguistic and contextual adaptation.The translator used Adaptation Theory to guide this practice,hoping this report would serve as a reference for translating legal texts.