Linguistic features of English-based UN legal instruments and their translation
—from the analysis of the Rotterdam Rules
Abstract
With the accelerating pace of globalization, a growing number of international legal documents presented in front of us, especially since the founding of the United Nations, different kinds of legal documents through its general assembly regulated various areas in the world. The thesis intends to discuss the linguistic features of the English-based UN’s legal instruments and their translation into Chinese, on the basis of analysis that of the Rotterdam Rules and the related bills of lading, with the opportunity of the official signature of the Rotterdam Rules.
The thesis reviews theories and criteria, dilemma and methods of legal translation, which were put forward by some famous theorists. Theories and criteria, such as the Yan Fu’s three principles of “faithfulness, expressiveness and elegance”, Eugene A. Nida with his functional equivalence and the German School of Functionalist Approaches to Translation with their skopos theory and so on; dilemma such as the incongruity of systems, the ambiguous of language feature, terminology and so on; methods of translation such as using corresponding terms, lexical expansion, paraphrase, neutral terms, borrowing terms and vague terms.
The thesis focuses on the lexical features of the Rotterdam-related bills of lading (like the Hague Rules), ranging from the specific features to the meta-analysis of lexical features under syntactic circumstance, and evident by examples. Come up with the features bellow: 1. use of common words with legal meanings; 2. use of archaic words; 3.use of borrowed words; 4. use of parallel synonyms or partial synonyms. In addition, put forward the solution to long and complex sentences. At last, conclude a way of translation of international conventions, which requires to start with the terms via sentence structure, finally, to the entire text.
Key words: legal translation, the Rotterdam Rules, lexical features, international conventions, cross-culture and functional equivalence
，英语论文范文，英语论文范文 |
