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Article published In:
Target
Vol. 14:1 (2002) ► pp.75–106

The pitfalls of linguistic equivalence

The challenge for legal translation

| Open University of Hong Kong
This paper discusses the problems of legislative translation in Hong Kong through the study of the rules adopted by the Department of Justice to select equivalent lexical terms and from the examination of the sentence structure and legislative expressions in pre-modern and modern ordinances. While literal translation can be effective in achieving “equal intent” on comparison with the original text, this paper will examine supplementary approaches in an attempt to address the problems and contradictions previously experienced in legislative translation and to increase the effectiveness of the translated text.
Keywords: legislative translation, legal bilingualism, terminological incongruity, conceptual incongruity, equivalence, legal terms, statutory interpretation, skopos theory, plain language drafting, literal translation
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Translation of lexical terms
  • Statutory interpretation
    • Example 1: HKSAR v Tam Yuk Ha
    • Example 2: HKSAR v Kiang Tak On
  • Sentence structure and legislative expressions
  • Translation methods
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 24 January 2003
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/target.14.1.04poo
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