Chapter OneTask Description
1.1 Introduction to the Source Text
Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM) is a sovereign financial free zone in AbuDhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It consists of three independentauthorities: the Registration Authority (RA), the Financial Services RegulatoryAuthority (FSRA) and ADGM Courts, and among which, the FSRA was establishedto advocate a progressive financial services environment and uphold the integrity ofthe whole international financial center by managing any potential risk exposure andspecial impact. It is responsible for regulatory arrangements and global businesscooperation throughout the financial free zone by enacting laws and policies to bringcertainty to market participants, ensuring regulatory framework and policy continuity,and undertaking financial license issuance and financial supervision.
The Conduct ofBusiness Rulebook of ADGM is one of those policies.The source text of this translation report is Chapter 3, Chapter 7 and Chapter 9excerpted from the Conduct of Business Rulebook of ADGM and this translationproject was independently completed by the translator herself. In addition, thetranslator has searched through various channels and found that the rulebook does nothave any Chinese translation.
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1.2 Objectives and Significance of the Translation Project
United Arab Emirates (UAE) is one of the first countries to support andparticipate in the “Belt and Road Initiative” of China. In 2018, its capital Abu Dhabiparticipated in the development of the “China-Pakistan Economic Corridor” projectof the “Belt and Road Initiative”. In May 2018, Abu Dhabi Global Marketestablished its first overseas office in Beijing. The offshore RMB center establishedand developed by ADGM provides convenient services for China’s “going out”enterprises in the Middle East and North Africa, while meeting the long-terminvestment and financing needs of China and the UAE. ADGM is located in theInternational Financial Centre (IFC) of the capital of the UAE and started operationon October 21, 2015. Over these years, it has already gained a high degree ofrecognition in the Chinese financial sector.
Chapter 3, Chapter 7 and Chapter 9 of the Conduct of Business Rulebook of AbuDhabi Global Market for the translation project are significant in two aspects.
Firstly, the Conduct of Business Rulebook of Abu Dhabi Global Market is anofficial regulatory document which contains many professional words andexpressions in legal field, as well as abundant financial terms. Chapter 3, Chapter 7and Chapter 9 are Core Rules of the Conduct of Business Rulebook, which are themost important and characteristic. All of the above-mentioned features make thetranslation of these chapters a typical yet challenging task for the translator. How todeal with these characteristic legal and financial words and expressions in Chinese isa challenge, and to solve this problem can improve the translator’s ability to applytranslation theories and strategies in all aspects. Meanwhile, a large amount ofresearch work and linguistic analysis needed in the process of translation can helpimprove the translator’s language literacy and train her academic research capabilities.In addition, the entire translation process involves repeated revisions andproofreading, which can help the translator to summarize translation experiences andlessons and thus provide references for her future translation tasks.
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Chapter TwoTheoretical Foundation
2.1 A General Introduction to Static Equivalence Theory
Before any translation process starts, a translation strategy needs to be determined.Legal translation is no exception. Although there are many translation theoriesavailable, none of them is specifically designed for legal text translation (Li Kexing,2011:12). It is under such circumstances that Static Equivalence Theory for legaltranslation was put forward by Professor Li Kexing of Hong Kong PolytechnicUniversity in 2009.
The naming of the Static Equivalence Theory is meant to highlight the differencebetween it and the Dynamic Equivalence Theory. The latter is a widely accepted andapplied translation theory proposed by Eugene Nida, and it claims that “meaning isthe most important, and form is secondary” (Guo Jiangzhong 2000:67), whichconflicts with the highest principle of legal translation and thus is not applicable tolegal translation.
According to Professor Li, a true static equivalent translation not only requirescomplete equivalence in deep meaning, superficial meaning, language structure, styleand format of the original text, but also requires the translation to reproduce theoriginal author's writing intention to the greatest extent. No matter who the reader is,if he/she has the corresponding bilingual competence, and is familiar with the legallanguage or the basic expression of the legal provisions, when he/she reads thesentence of the legal translation, he/she can immediately think of the sentencestructure or structure of the original text, and all the main terms, the smallest unit in asentence, used in the original sentence (Li Kexing 2013:12).
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2.2 Application Conditions of Static Equivalence Theory
The reason why static equivalence can be achieved in legal translation is that thespecial mission of the legal text and the characteristics of the legal language itselfconstitute a series of special requirements or conditions.
1. Static Language
Most legal instruments are written by trained lawyers and judicial experts in acertain format or template. In terms of narrating facts, explaining jurisprudence,establishing responsibilities, and stipulating rewards and punishments, they are morerigorous and more semantically precise than other types of works. Therefore, legaltext uses no metaphors or figures of speech (Garner, 2003:297). So, legal language isbasically static. Thus, legal translation requires a static translation strategy.
2. Strict Translation Principle
The highest principle of legal translation is to be completely faithful to thesource text. Its operational interpretation is to make the translation accurate (LiKexing 2007:43-65). Because of the large number of legal concepts or terms that arerepeated in the legal text, the use of the exact word rather than its synonym is morelikely to ensure accuracy. Therefore, both the Principle of Identity and the Principleof Consistency need to be followed. In this sense, an objective condition for statictranslation is provided.
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Chapter Three Case Studies ..............................9
3.1 Key Difficulties in Translation...........................9
3.1.1 Lexical Difficulties...............................9
3.1.1.1 Archaic Words .........................10
3.1.1.2 Personal Pronouns ....................... 11
Chapter Four Conclusion.........................28
4.1 Reflections on the Translation Project ..........................28
4.2 Findings of the Translation Project ......................29
4.3 Limitations and Future Improvements.........................30
Chapter ThreeCase Studies
3.1 Key Difficulties in Translation
As discussed in Section 1.3, the main lexical difficulties of this translationpractice are the determination and translation of legal words and expressions as wellas financial terms in the original text, such as archaic words and Islamic financialterms. The main syntactic difficulties are the analysis and translation of long andcomplex sentences.
3.1.1 Lexical Difficulties
In this section, the author will introduce above-mentioned lexical difficulties inthe order of archaic words, personal pronouns and Islamic financial terms.
3.1.1.1 Archaic Words
The legal language of each country is the most formal and normative languagein the country. In principle, the use of precise words to express clear legal concepts isthe most important feature of legal language and its most basic requirements. For thisreason, archaic words are often used in English legal texts, most of which arecompound words formed by an adverb and a preposition, such as “herein”, “hereof”,“hereafter”, etc. The use of archaic words not only makes the language of legal textsimple and concise, but also makes the structure of legal text rigorous, logically strict,thus avoiding duplication and misunderstanding. The source text is no exception.Although archaic words used in the source text are not much, they are most specialcharacteristic of legal language (Gibbons, 2003:41) and the proper discrimination andtranslation is not only challenging to the author but also essential to the quality of thewhole passage. Thus, they need to be discussed in the paper. Some sentencescontaining archaic words in the source text are listed in Table 3.1
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Chapter FourConclusion
4.1 Reflections on the Translation Project
Through the translation of the Conduct of Business Rulebook of Abu DhabiGlobal Market, the author has deeply realized that “Translation is difficult, legaltranslation is more difficult”. Because the application of existing translation strategiesto the special stylistic translation of the law is not satisfactory, some strategies cannoteven be applied. In the process of analyzing the project and writing the report, theauthor deeply felt the “helplessness” brought about by the lack of legal translationtheory. This report aims to explain the specific application of the translation strategythrough the analysis of the static equivalence translation strategy proposed byProfessor Li Kexing and looks forward to exploring the shortcuts of strategyselection in legal translation. Due to different social environments, differences inpeople's ideology and culture, etc., the author believes that the pursuit of completeequivalence in legal translation is basically impossible. However, static equivalencein the text is achievable, which requires the translated version to reflect the literalmeaning, the deep meaning, the structure, style and pattern of the original text in thetranslation. Although some aspects of equivalence may have a certain impact due todifferences in the legal system, translators should try to find the approximateequivalence as much as possible, and not give up easily.
Meanwhile, due to the accuracy requirements of the legal translation, it is betterfor the translator to follow certain rules in the translation process, otherwise most ofthe hidden information in the translation may be omitted, thus losing the most basicvalue of the translation. In the process of applying the static equivalence strategy forlegal translation, the translator must first understand the legislative intent of theoriginal text and the legislation of the country where the bill is located, so as to beconsistent with other legal texts in the same legal system to ensure that the translationhas certain legal effects. Secondly, it is necessary to analyze and unify the terms inthe legal text, and then carry out grammar analysis, operative analysis and languageconversion on the text of the legal text. Finally, the translator must ensure the qualityof the translation through back translation.
reference(omitted)