Regarding principles of legal translation, Chen Zhongcheng firstly concluded comprehensively and proposed five general principles: a) using solemn vocabulary; b) accuracy; c) concision; d) consistency; e) employing terminology.来!自~751论-文|网www.751com.cn

3. Legal Language

Legal language is characterized by its high degree of preciseness, formality, professionalization. Only when a translator proficient in law and legal culture can he master the translation of legal text. Neither a translator ignorant of law and legal culture or a lawyer rusty in translation can be qualified for legal text translation.

3.1 Characteristics of legal language

When we talk of “legal language”, we usually refer to the “languages which is used in the written legal texts such as wills, contracts, police testimony and in legislation”. The legal texts are in a particular genre which is independent from other genres of expression. The features of legal language have become the focus of concern of both linguists and legal practitioners as legal language is characterized by its high degree of formality, lengthy structures, non-punctuation, fondness of post-modification, extensive use of anaphora, apposition, nominal, archaic words and legal jargon. These features cannot be found in the language of other disciplines. In a word, (1) The grammatical featured, (2) the choice of diction of the legal language and (3) the style of the legal documents are the major areas of legal text translation, which should be given particular attention.