On the Translatability of Legal Texts: Investigating and Applying Principles of Equivalence, Conventionality and Functionality
On the Translatability of Legal Texts: Investigating and Applying Principles of Equivalence, Conventionality and Functionality

Summary/Abstract: This study is devoted to investigating Romanian legal source texts' translatability into English by applying methods derived from the use of concepts such as equivalence, conventionality and functionality. The starting point of the article is a series of investigative questions regarding the aspects that define the equivalence from the source language to the target language, how we can identify which of the general characteristics of text analysis and the particular elements of the legal texts could be more conventional. Furthermore, the focus is on the effects that the implemented functional theories can produce in the legal translation, emphasizing an applied thematic research. This study focuses on a methodological approach regarding the applicability of equivalence, conventionality and functional theories in legal translation through several examples regarding legal and linguistic criteria used in order to establish the translatability of different legal texts from Romanian into English. This research shows the author's keen interest in legal translation via an analysis bringing in focus a variety of grammatical, lexical, stylistic and pragmatic elements as appropriate to the translation transfer.

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