translating contracts and agreements

7/27/2019 Translating contracts and agreements

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UNIVERSITATEA AL. I. CUZA IAI FACULTATEA DE LITERE CATEDRA DE ENGLEZ

Translating contracts and agreements:difficulties and challenges

Candidat

IAI, 2012


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Translating contracts and agreements: difficulties and challenges

Aims:

- To identify the main features of a specific type of legal tecontracts and agreements.

- To determine whether they represent sources of difficultytranslation;

- To present possible translational solutions.


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TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction1. General Features of the Legal Languages and Systems Involved

1.1. The nature of legal English1.2. The nature of legal Romanian1.3. Common vs. Civil law

2. Contracts in the Anglo-Saxon World2.1. Form and structure of contracts2.2. Classification of contracts2.3. Function of translated contracts

3. Sources of Linguistic Difficulty in the Translation of Contracts3.1. Difficulties at the lexical level

3.1.1. Archaic terms3.1.2. Latinisms3.1.3. Terms of French and Norman origin3.1.4. Purely technical terms, semi-technical terms and non-techni

terms3.1.5. Synonymic chains: the issue of doublets andtriplets


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3.2. Difficulties at the syntactic level3.2.1. The complexity of the sentence structure

3.2.1.1. Syntactic arrangements3.2.1.2.Word order

3.2.1.3. The extensive use of the passive voice3.2.1.4. Punctuation3.3. 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 ambiguity4. Culture-Specific Difficulties

4.1. Difficulties originating from differences between the two legal systems4.2. The issue of cultural legal terms and equivalence

ConclusionsBibliography

AnnexesAnnex I: Memorandum and Articles of Association/Contract de asocierei Statutul

societiiAnnex II: Service Provision Contract/Contract de prestare serviciiAnnex III: Sales Agreement/Contract de vnzareAnnex IV: Cohabitation Agreement/Contract de coabitare


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The corpus

Four contracts and their Romanian translation

Annex I: Memorandum and Articles of Association/Contract deasocierei 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


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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 atenants in common in equal shares. (CA, 2)TT: Prile sunt de acords dein dreptul de uzufruct asupraLocuinei ncalitate decoproprietari cu cote- pri egale.-Semi-technical termsconsideration ST: No Shares may be issued for aconsideration other than money, () (MA,2.5)TT: Nu se emitAciuni contra uneicompensaii alta dect banii, (...) -Non-technical termsregulation

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 t Regulation 3 of the Articles. (MA, 7.2)TT: Prin Hotrrea Administratorilor, administratorii pot oricnds cumpere,rscumpere , sau s achiziioneze toate sau un anumitnumr din Aciunile Companiei conform Prevederii 3 din StatutulSocietii .


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3.2. Difficulties at the syntactic level

-Punctuation :

ST: (...) in any other case it shall stand adjourned to the next business day in th jurisdiction in which the meeting was to have been held at the same time an place or to such other time and place as the directors may determine, and if athe adjourned meeting there are present within one hour from the timeappointed from the meeting in person or by proxy not less than one third of thvotes of the Shares or each class or series of Shares entitled to vote on thematters to be considered by the meeting, those present shall constitute aquorum but otherwise the meeting shall be dissolved. (MA, 7.13)TT: (...) n toate celelalte cazuri, aceasta va fiamnat pentru urmtoarea zilucrtoare din jurisdicia n care adunarea trebuias fie organizat, n acelai loc i la aceeai or sau n loculi la ora stabilite dectre administratori, iar dac la adunareaamnat se prezint n decurs de oor de la momentul stabilit pentru adunare, personal sau prin mandatar, cel puin o treime dinAsociaii cudrept de vot sau afiecrei clase sau serii deAsociai cu drept de vot cu referirela chestiunile care vor fi luate n considerare la adunare, cei prezeni vor constituinumrul necesar de membri; n caz contrar, adunarea va fidizolvat .


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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/non -

technical 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


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4. Culture-Specific Difficulties

-Cultural legal terms and equivalence:

words associated with legal personnel:

words associated with court structures:U.K. (Common Law) Romania (Civil Law)

the House of Lords, the SupremeCourt of Judicature, Court of Appeal,the High Court of Justice, the CrownCourt; subordinate courts are theMagistrates Court, the County Courtsand tribunals; special courts andtribunals comprise such types of courts as the Coroners Court,Youths Courts, and others.

nalta Curte deCasaie i Justiie (High Court of Cassation andJustice), Curile de Apel (Courts of Appeal), Tribunalele (Tribunals),Judectoriile (First instance courts),

U.S.A. (Common Law) U.K. (Common Law) Romania (Civil LAw)

lawyer or attorney solicitor or barrister avocat or consilier juridic


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Cultural legal terms and equivalence

words associated with particular areas of the law and institutions:

Common Law Civil LawCommon LawEquityStatute law

Constitutional lawAdministrative lawPublic international lawCriminal law,Commercial lawLabour law, etc.


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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 inour country, which means that:

- the analysis reflects the real challenges that Romaniantranslators 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 coul

represent a support at least for translators who are at the beginningof their career.


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ConclusionsThe specificcategories of lexical units :

The syntacticcharacteristics :

In terms of style :

In terms of culture-

specificity

sources of various levels of difficulty fortranslators, depending on every particular case;

the complexity and the considerable size osentences characterising contracts, explained bthe manner of formulating specific provisionwhich, in their turn, derive from the way inwhich legal thinking takes place in the English

culture.

the overall feeling of writtenness, ambiguousformulations and tricky syntactic arrangementrepresentdangerous passages that translatorshave to render in the target language.

the most challenging aspect; there are no twocountries with the same identical legal systemsEvery society presents a legal language withculture-bound terms that do not havecorrespondent concepts in other societies ->

difficult to render into a different language.


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Thank you!

translating contracts and agreements

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