The Translation of Long Sentences in Legal Texts

金 紅

蘭州大學 甘肅蘭州 730000

Abstract Legal language is characterized by the“authority” and“accuracy”.Therefore,legislators use various clauses,modifiers in the legal language for the purpose of explaining the legal meaning clearly.Consequently,there are many long sentences in the English text law.This paper mainly discusses the translation of long sentence in the legal text.KeyWords Legal Text;translation of long sentence

The law which is recognized by the people is formulated bythe state or international organization. The type of language dedicatedto legal documents has certain characteristics, so it iscalled legal language. Lv Jun(2000, p182) holds that, in legaltext, the elements such as subject, object, and adverbial in thesentence are often decorated with modifiers, and these modifiersform a long sentence with complex structure.When translatingthe long sentences of legal texts, what the translator needs to doare as follows:

Firstly,analyzing the grammatical structure.In order to ensure the accuracy and strictness of law language,the nouns often have many modifiers,and verbs are also modified by various components to supplement and explain.Therefore,when translating legal texts,translators need to analyze the grammatical structure.Itenablesus to understand the logical relationship correctly within the long sentence and clarify the primary and secondary information.

Second,analysis of the information structure.In the legal text,long sentences contain some information units,which are related with each other,and there is a certain relationship between the information unit and the grammar unit.Only on the basis of understanding the long sentence information structure,can the translator grasps the semantic focus and distinguishes the primary and secondary information,making appropriate arrangements for the translation structure.

Thirdly,adjustment of the word order.Xing Fengping(2012)points that Chinese emphasizes on Hypotaxis while English stresses Parataxis.Fang Mengzhi(2015:25)believes that the subject-predicate structure commonly used in English is different from the Chinese theme and rheme.So the translator should adjust the order of the sentences,such as reverse translation.

In conclusion,when dealing with long sentences in legal text,translator should analyze the grammatical structure and information units,grasping the main idea.Then,the translator can choose to linear translation or reverse translation according to the specific text.

Bibliography：

Fang Mengzhi.(2015).A Textbook of Pragmatic Translation.Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Lv Jun(2000).A coursebook for English-Chinese Translation.Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.

Xing Fengping.(2012).Untranslatability and its Compensation Strategies——Taking The Original of Laura as an Example.Overseas English.