UNIVERSITATEA AL. I.

CUZA IAI FACULTATEA DE LITERE CATEDRA DE ENGLEZ

Translating contracts and agreements: difficulties and challenges

Candidat

IAI, 2012

Translating contracts and agreements: difficulties and challenges

Aims:
-

To identify the main features of a specific type of legal text: contracts and agreements. To determine whether they represent sources of difficulty in translation; To present possible translational solutions.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction 1. General Features of the Legal Languages and Systems Involved 1.1. The nature of legal English 1.2. The nature of legal Romanian 1.3. Common vs. Civil law 2. Contracts in the Anglo-Saxon World 2.1. Form and structure of contracts 2.2. Classification of contracts 2.3. Function of translated contracts 3. Sources of Linguistic Difficulty in the Translation of Contracts 3.1. Difficulties at the lexical level 3.1.1. Archaic terms 3.1.2. Latinisms 3.1.3. Terms of French and Norman origin 3.1.4. Purely technical terms, semi-technical terms and non-technical terms 3.1.5. Synonymic chains: the issue of doublets and triplets

3.2. Difficulties at the syntactic level 3.2.1. The complexity of the sentence structure 3.2.1.1. Syntactic arrangements 3.2.1.2.Word order 3.2.1.3. The extensive use of the passive voice 3.2.1.4. Punctuation 3.3. Difficulties related to style 3.3.1. The extremely formal character 3.3.2. The issue of ambiguity 3.3.2.1. Lexical ambiguity 3.3.2.2. Syntactic ambiguity 4. Culture-Specific Difficulties 4.1. Difficulties originating from differences between the two legal systems 4.2. The issue of cultural legal terms and equivalence Conclusions Bibliography Annexes Annex I: Memorandum and Articles of Association/Contract de asociere i Statutul societii Annex II: Service Provision Contract/Contract de prestare servicii Annex III: Sales Agreement/Contract de vnzare Annex IV: Cohabitation Agreement/Contract de coabitare

The corpus
Four contracts and their Romanian translation

Annex I: Memorandum and Articles of Association/Contract de asociere i Statutul societii Annex II: Service Provision Contract/Contract de prestare servicii Annex III: Sales Agreement/Contract de vnzare Annex IV: Cohabitation Agreement/Contract de coabitare

3.1. Difficulties at the lexical level -Purely technical terms

tenants in common ST: The Parties agree that they shall hold the beneficial interest in the Home as tenants in common in equal shares. (CA, 2) TT: Prile sunt de acord s dein dreptul de uzufruct asupra Locuinei n calitate de coproprietari cu cote-pri egale.

-Semi-technical terms
consideration ST: No Shares may be issued for a consideration other than money, () (MA, 2.5) TT: Nu se emit Aciuni contra unei compensaii alta dect banii, (...)

-Non-technical terms
regulation ST: The directors may at their discretion by Resolution of Directors redeem, purchase or otherwise acquire all or any of the shares of the Company subject to Regulation 3 of the Articles. (MA, 7.2) TT: Prin Hotrrea Administratorilor, administratorii pot oricnd s cumpere, rscumpere, sau s achiziioneze toate sau un anumit numr din Aciunile Companiei conform Prevederii 3 din Statutul Societii.

3.2. Difficulties at the syntactic level -Punctuation :

ST: (...) in any other case it shall stand adjourned to the next business day in the jurisdiction in which the meeting was to have been held at the same time and place or to such other time and place as the directors may determine, and if at the adjourned meeting there are present within one hour from the time appointed from the meeting in person or by proxy not less than one third of the votes of the Shares or each class or series of Shares entitled to vote on the matters to be considered by the meeting, those present shall constitute a quorum but otherwise the meeting shall be dissolved. (MA, 7.13) TT: (...) n toate celelalte cazuri, aceasta va fi amnat pentru urmtoarea zi lucrtoare din jurisdicia n care adunarea trebuia s fie organizat, n acelai loc i la aceeai or sau n locul i la ora stabilite de ctre administratori, iar dac la adunarea amnat se prezint n decurs de o or de la momentul stabilit pentru adunare, personal sau prin mandatar, cel puin o treime din Asociaii cu drept de vot sau a fiecrei clase sau serii de Asociai cu drept de vot cu referire la chestiunile care vor fi luate n considerare la adunare, cei prezeni vor constitui numrul necesar de membri; n caz contrar, adunarea va fi dizolvat.

3.3. Difficulties related to style

The issue of ambiguity: -Lexical ambiguity
denotation, connotation and register: purely/semi/non-technical terms; appropriate level of formality (e.g. breach of contract, lien, trust/consideration,provisions/regulation, rate) polysemy and the importance of context: semi-technical terms synonyms, hyperonyms and hyponyms: doublets/ triplets; semi/nontechnical vocabulary uncommon sets of antonyms : e.g. actual vs. constructive: constructive dismissal) false friends: e.g.: article ST: Articles of Association of the Company (MA) TT: Statutul Societii

-Syntactic ambiguity
Intralingual Interlingual

4. Culture-Specific Difficulties
-Cultural legal terms and equivalence:

words associated with legal personnel:

Romania (Civil LAw) avocat or consilier juridic solicitor or barrister

U.S.A. (Common Law) U.K. (Common Law) lawyer or attorney

words associated with court structures:

U.K. (Common Law) Romania (Civil Law) nalta Curte de Casaie i Justiie (High Court of Cassation and Justice), Curile de Apel (Courts of Appeal), Tribunalele (Tribunals), Judectoriile (First instance courts),

the House of Lords, the Supreme Court of Judicature, Court of Appeal, the High Court of Justice, the Crown Court; subordinate courts are the Magistrates Court, the County Courts and tribunals; special courts and tribunals comprise such types of courts as the Coroners Court, Youths Courts, and others.

Cultural legal terms and equivalence

words associated with particular areas of the law and institutions:

Common Law
Common Law Equity Statute law

Civil Law
Constitutional law Administrative law Public international law Criminal law, Commercial law Labour law, etc.

Personal contribution

Despite the research made in the field of legal translation in our country, this particular text type has not been fully researched, especially from the point of view of the translational difficulties it poses; The corpus comprises authentic texts translated by translators in our country, which means that: - the analysis reflects the real challenges that Romanian translators face when dealing with this type of legal text; -the solutions presented for different translational difficulties brought out in this paper are drawn from real practice, which could represent a support at least for translators who are at the beginning of their career.

Conclusions

The specific categories of lexical units:

sources of various levels of difficulty for translators, depending on every particular case; the complexity and the considerable size of sentences characterising contracts, explained by the manner of formulating specific provisions which, in their turn, derive from the way in which legal thinking takes place in the English culture.

The syntactic characteristics:

In terms style:

of

the overall feeling of writtenness, ambiguous formulations and tricky syntactic arrangements represent dangerous passages that translators have to render in the target language. the most challenging aspect; there are no two countries with the same identical legal systems. Every society presents a legal language with culture-bound terms that do not have correspondent concepts in other societies -> difficult to render into a different language.

In terms culturespecificity

of

Thank you!