Wednesday, 18 February 2015

Legal Translation And Its Issues

What is legal translation exactly? It's the process of translating legal documents from one country's language to another. Translating legal documents is a complicated process, as not only does a translator have to be fluent in each country's different cultural language, but they need to be intimately familiar with each country's legal system. In essence they are performing two different translations instead of just one. To add to the complexity and pressure of legal translation, the stakes tend to be extremely high for these professionals as a mistranslation can result in one or both parties unwittingly breaking the law and opening themselves up to serious legal actions and repercussions.

There are few forms of translation that require the level of precision and cultural familiarity that legal translations require. While temporary mis-communication and minor personal problems can crop up when a conversation is translated improperly, while a lack of flavor and style can occur when a piece of fiction or some other literary text is mistranslated, and while you might get some wrong directions if you translate improperly while traveling in another country, an error in a legal translation can lead to imprisonment or hefty lawsuits.

The seriousness of legal translation is largely due to the fact that most trans-language legal documents are business documents that assign various roles and responsibilities to the different parties involved. Legal documents that require translation also often are composites of statements and documents composed by multiple individuals. For example if you are dealing with witness statements from 6 different people a translator needs to understand both languages well enough to get the flavor of the statement while also understanding each country's law well enough to make sure they don't take poetic license translating a specific word or phrase whose translation holds different legal context in each system of law.

Additionally many translation problems can crop up when a document or statement utilizes words and phrases which have no direct pairing in the second language. This translation issues is especially important considering the deep and precise analysis of words that lawyers utilize in their arguments when presenting cases.

Law-related translations are, in essence, a minefield, which is why it's so important that you only hire the best translators for this work. It isn't enough to hire a normal translator, this is such a focused field you need to always hire a specialist. While you will certain pay more money for a lawyer who specializes in legal translation, you cannot risk the long term legal and financial difficulties that improper legal translations open you up to.

Charlene Lacandazo is a marketing executive for a legal translation agency called Rosetta Translation, which is headquartered in London.

Rosetta Translation focuses on legal translation services to Fortune 500 companies and leading global law firms.

Source: http://ezinearticles.com/?Legal-Translation-And-Its-Issues&id=6177205

1 comment:

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