I
recently read a blog entry by one of my colleagues at the MA in Legal
Translation (City University, London), Rob Lunn (“Legal Translators have more fun”): http://legalspaintrans.com/legal-translation/legal-translators-have-more-fun-part-1-unique-legal-systems/
Lunn explains how challenging legal translation is and how “legal translators need to have a good grounding
in the legal systems they translate to and from”. Most theorists seem to agree on the fact that legal
translation “is complex, and it requires special skills, knowledge and
experience on the part of the translator”.
“It has been described as the
ultimate linguistic challenge, combining the inventiveness of literary
translation with the terminological precision of technical translation (Cairns
and McKeon 1995, Gémar 1995, Pelage 2000, all cited in Harvey 2002)”. Cao (2007,
p3).
I couldn’t agree more with these well-established observations, but yet, we
find there are plenty of individuals out there who call themselves “legal
translators” who do not understand the importance of having a specific
background in language and law training and the adequate experience before
deciding to take on a legal translation.
I am often overwhelmed with the amount of people who use translation forums
such as WordReference or ProZ to ask questions which often indicate that they
do not have the knowledge or background to be dealing with the document which
they are translating, which makes me think they should not be translating that
specific document in the first place. The worst thing a translator can do, from
my point of view, is use a forum to ask about a specific term or concept. The
same way they should not just use a bilingual dictionary “and go with whatever
synonym looks best without fully grasping what the terms mean” (Lunn: 2013)
In this blog entry, I would like to make clients aware of the importance of
choosing the right legal translator for their work.
I would urge clients to do a little bit of research on the translator they
are about to hire, the same way you would not go to a doctor without checking
his credentials first. I believe it is essential to check
the translators’ qualifications and experience in the legal translation field before
engaging their services.
The translators’ qualifications and experience
in the field of legal translation are an important issue to consider. Legal
translation, as mentioned earlier, is a complex and challenging topic and potential
clients should make sure translators dealing with your documents know what they
are dealing with and have the necessary expertise to look for differences in
the two legal systems, ambiguities, terminological issues, false cognates, etc.
Preferably, you should choose a translator whose mother tongue is the target language. If you need to translate a
document from English into Spanish for example, the best result will be
obtained if you choose a translator whose first language is Spanish. There could
be, of course, exceptions of translators who, even though have Spanish as their
first language, have been living in the UK for a long time and have become
bilingual and have an excellent knowledge of both the Spanish and British legal
systems and would, therefore, be fit to translate from or into either language.
The
client could also check whether the translator is part of a professional body (such as the
Chartered Institute of Linguists or ITI) or is registered with a professional
organism (i.e. a Consulate or an Embassy for example).
I have
come across many language teachers who speak two or three languages who take on
legal translation work, on the wrong assumption that just by speaking both languages,
they will not encounter any problems when translating. Far from it, they end up
having to desperately ask other professional translators for help with the
translation of different terms and concepts and you come to realize that it is
precisely their lack of knowledge in the legal systems which make them not able
to translate legal documents.
Good
luck when choosing the right translator for your job!
