(1) Original Chinese Version: 外国合营者如果有意以落后的技术和设备进行欺骗,造成损失的,应赔偿损失. (《中华人民共和国合营企业法》第五条》)
English Version: If the foreign joint venture causes losses by deception through the intentional use of backward technology and equipment, it shall pay compensation for the losses.
In accordance with the original Chinese version, one of the premises to pay compensation is to “造成损失”. Since a Chinese noun do not have the single form and plural form like an English noun, legal translators should make clear what the original version means before making any decision. Obviously, “损失” in the original form refers to both “the loss” in single form and “losses” in plural form. But according to the English version, the foreign venture needn’t pay compensation for the “loss” he has caused, which is actually unfaithful to the original Chinese version. The version should be translated like the following:
If the foreign joint venture causes any loss(es) by deception through the intentional use of backward technology and equipment, it shall pay compensation therefore.
(2) Original Chinese version: 如发生严重亏损, 一方不履行合同和章程规定的义务、不可抗力等, ……可提前终止合同.
English Version: … in case of heavy losses, failure of a party to fulfill the obligations prescribed by the contract and the articles of association, force majeure, etc. the contract may be terminated.…
In the above sentence, “etc.” is used in the meaning of “and”. According to this, the contract can’t be terminated unless all the three cases take place, i.e., in case of heavy losses, failure … and force majeure, ete. However, in the light of the spirit in the original Chinese version, the contract can be terminated when any one of the three cases happens. The faithful translation version should be like the following:
… in case of heavy losses, failure of a party to fulfill the obligations prescribed by the contract or the articles of association, or force majeure, the contract may be terminated…
It is only in a meticulous way can legal translators, being loyal to the original version, avoid loopholes in translation version and achieve the precision of expression.
3 The syntaxtic precision in legal English documents
In order to avoid any possible confusion and dispute and to defend the dignity of the law, use of declarative sentences, use of complete sentences, use of parallel structures and use of nominalization are impossible.
3. 1 The precision of sentence pattern in legal English documents
According to the usage of sentence，English sentence can be divided into declarative sentence, imperative sentence, interrogative sentence and exclamatory sentence. This parts of paper will mainly analize use of declarative sentences and rare use of ellipsis sentences.
3. 1 .1 Use of declarative sentences
Huang (黄永平,2004: 178) explains that “An overall look at legal utterance will allow us to find that declarative sentences, in terms of the purpose of use, take up an overwhelming majority of sentences in all classes of legal utterance except in court cross-examinations and police interrogation. It is safe to say that sentences (if complete) in statutes and contracts are all declarative sentences.”
Legal documents are used to identify the legal relationship and stipulate the people’s rights and obligations. Huang (黄永平, 2004: 179) says that “declarative sentences rest through a statute without any shift to other types of sentences.” Huang (黄永平, 2004: 179) also states that “A statute must be authoritative, and this naturally calls for an affirmative tone represented in statements. The use of declarative sentences gives the reader the impression that as they are devoid of ornate language they are simple-styled but forceful. “The preponderance of declarative sentences in legal documents is determined by the declarative illocutionary force which dominates in legal documents and which legal documents need.” (Ibid) So in legal English, the declarative sentences are often used to achieve precision and certainty. Here are two examples:
(1). The Arbitration Commission has one honorary chairman and several advisers.
(2). The arbitration tribunal shall hold oral hearings when examining a case.
The above two examples all use declarative sentences to stipulate the establishment of the Arbitration Commission and the trial of arbitrary ease. Through the declarative sentences, people can understand the stipulation of the law clearly and ambiguity is also avoided.
3. 1. 2 Rare use of ellipsis sentences
The legal documents require integrate structure and strict expression. The complete sentences with both subject and predicate are often used in legal English while the elliptical sentences rarely appear. It is to avoid ambiguity or error even being distorted at will. Look at the following example:
“Invention” in the Patent Law means any new technical solution relating to a product, a process or an improvement thereof.
转贴于 酷文网-论文下载中心 http://www.coolwen.net
共8页: 上一页 [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] 6 [7] [8] 下一页
网摘收藏:
当前位置:
载入中...
-> 在百度中搜索：
-> 在Google中搜索：