A Study On RCEP Agreement’s E-C Translation From The Perspective Of Legal Hermeneutics

With countries all over the world deepening economic and trade cooperation with each other,worldwide cultural exchanges have been on the rise,especially legal culture exchanges.In the new era,one of the most significant tasks for China is to promote the coordinated development of domestic rule of law and foreign-related rule of law.To this end,more attention has been paid to the C-E translation of domestic laws and regulations.At the same time,E-C translation of international legal texts should also be emphasized.The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement(hereinafter referred to as“RCEP”)is of great practical significance to the economic development of the Asia-Pacific region and the global economic recovery in the post-pandemic era.The agreement has the basic structure of typical legal texts.A comprehensive analysis of its translation will be conducive to an accurate understanding of international trade rules.Moreover,it will help China gain more initiative and discourse power in foreign-related legal affairs.Therefore,the study on the E-C translation of RCEP is worthy of attention.Recently,interdisciplinary research on legal translation has been on the rise.It has been shown that legal hermeneutics is a feasible approach to legal translation.Although translators have no right to make an authoritative interpretation,this approach can help them understand the original texts,which is the prerequisite for accurate translation.It is worth noting that “equivalence” is a priority in legal translation.This study aims to analyze RCEP’s official translation in the framework of legal hermeneutics summarized by Prof.Wang Liming,and with the help of legal translation principles proposed by Prof.Zhang Falian,who has also summarized six translation principles for legal documents.The following three research questions will be discussed.How about the quality of RCEP’s official Chinese translation? What role does legal hermeneutics have in the comprehension and expression of legal translation? Is there any relationship between legal hermeneutics and translation quality assessment of legal texts?A bilingual parallel corpus of RCEP has been constructed.The following conclusions have been reached with the help of both qualitative and quantitative research.Firstly,the official Chinese version is of high quality.The achievements won’t be overshadowed.RCEP’s translators have adopted the view of connection and the view of case-by-case analysis.As shown in the paper,it’s feasible to combine legal hermeneutics with legal translation,with the former contributing to the comprehension of the input and the quality assessment of the output,which promotes the further development of legal translation.Secondly,as a branch of Hermeneutics,legal hermeneutics has inherited the wisdom of the broad discipline.That’s why it’s of great significance to the comprehension of legal translations.Comprehension is the basis of expression.Legal hermeneutics,obviously not a translation theory,benefits the accuracy of comprehension,thus having the potential to make TT more appropriate by evaluating its translation quality.Thirdly,legal hermeneutics can’t work directly on the expression part,but it helps to compare the effects of ST and TT.It’s conducive to examine whether TT has followed the legal translation principles,thereby assessing TT’s quality.This approach will provide insights for legal translators with limited professional backgrounds.