1 Introduction 1
2 Law， Language and Translation 7
Legal Translation Typology 7
The Nature of Legal Language 13
Characterising Legal Language 20
Sources of Difficulty in Legal Translation 23
Legal Translational Equivalence: Possibility and Impossibility 32
3 The Legal Translator 37
Translation Competence and Translation Proficiency 39
A Model of Translation Competence 40
Exploring Translation Competence 41
4 Legal Terminological Issues in Translation 53
Major Terminological Issues 53
Translating Legal Concepts 54
Legal System-bound Usage 60
Ordinary Meaning vs…Legal Meaning 67
Legal Synonyms 70
Linguistic and Legal Uncertain 73
5 Translating Private Legal Documents 83
Purpose and Status of Translated Private Legal Documents 84
Linguistic Features of Private Legal Documents 85
Differences between the Common Law and Civil Law 96
6 Translating Domestic Legislation 101
Two Types of Translated Domestic Legislation 101
Textual Features of Statutes 103
Pragmatic Feature: Illocutionary Force 114
Other Common Linguistic Features of Legislative Texts 117
Bilingual Statutory Interpretation and Linguistic Uncertainty 122
7 Translating International Legal Instruments 134
International Instruments and their Legal Status 135
Designation of International Instruments 138
Subject Matters Covered by International Instruments 142
Textual Features of International Instruments 143
Verifying Foreign Language Texts in Bilateral Treaty Negotiation 147
Arrangements of Less than Treaty Status 148
Multilingual Instrument Drafting and Translation 149
How the Court Approaches Divergence in Multilingual Law 153
The Use of Translation Technology for Translating Multilingual Texts 158
List of Cases 164
Bibliography 167
Index 187