Research On English Translation’s Strategies For Legal Texts From The Perspective Of Functional Equivalence Theory

With the rapid development of globalization,the translation of legal texts is playing a significant part in international cooperation day by day.The quality of legal text translation not only impacts economic cooperation but also influences the establishment as well as maintenance of international relations.One translated version of the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China has been taken in this paper,which has been effective from 1 November 2021 as an example for assessing its merits and shortcomings under Eugene A’s guidance.Nida’s functional equivalence theory.Several suggestions have been put forward in this paper regarding the English translation of this law in the future and highlight that functional equivalence theory plays a significant part in the translation of legal texts from Chinese to English.This is precisely what this paper should investigate:the significant theoretical guiding value of functional equivalence theory to the quality improvement of the English translation of Chinese legal texts.This thesis’ research method is a case study from the lexical,syntactic,and discourse perspectives of legal texts,the merits,and defects of translation have been illustrated in this paper respectively in the light of functional equivalence theory in Chapter 3 and Chapter 4 and give corresponding explanations as well as suggestions for future translation.It is concluded that functional equivalence theory has significant theoretical guiding value for exploring and analysing the merits and defects of the English translation version of legislative text and improving its quality accordingly.First and foremost,fidelity to the meaning of the original text is the most important goal of legal translation.This is because the legal text primarily includes rights as well as obligations,if the translator devotedly conveys the original text meaning,the translation of the legal text would make the target audience misunderstood and incapable of correctly implementing the law,which would make the legal text fail to successfully acquire functional equivalence.The meaning of words and phrases has been achieved equivalence between the original and target readers under the guidance of the functional equivalence theory.Secondly:Another characteristic of legal text translation is that the translator must achieve the equivalence of legal influence in the translation process,otherwise the translated legal text is considered to be a failure.According to Functional equivalence theory,the target reader and the original reader have the same response to the text,i.e.,they have an equivalent understanding of the legal effect.The author proposes that the experts in the future emphasize enhancing her legal background,accumulating translation experience,as well as enhancing language expression for enhancing the professionalism of the translation of legal texts.