Interference in legal translation: addressing challenges
Valentina V. Stepanova – Irina N. Meshkova – Olga A. Sheremetieva
DOI: 10.18355/XL.2018.11.01.24
Abstract
The relevance of this research is determined by the worldwide multi-media communication, which puts the issues of clear and reliable translation at the forefront of any activities. Translation in the legal sphere occupies a special place due to possible legal consequences in case of translation default. The research is focused on the issues of interference in legal translation as part of the language and translation studies. The critical methods applied are contrastive and contextual analysis allowing to identify language interference on different levels (cognitive/semantic, grammatical/structural, phraseological, syntactic and pragmatical). Among the channels of interference are also an incorrect understanding of legal context and culture of the source language (SL) and target language (TL). Interference results in language misuse, an obscure and unintelligible translation that hampers the information flow in the target text (TT). The results of the research confirm that language interference is a broad phenomenon that occurs due to linguistic, temporal and conceptual rupture of the sent message, which is not recognised by the addressee. The research investigates the most common types of interference in translations into Russian, English and French within the legal domain and suggests recommendations for their correction. The materials of the research contribute to linguistics and translation studies. They can also be used in training legal translators and may be interesting to lawyers involved in comparative law studies.
Key words: language interference, types of interference, translation strategies, legal context, legal culture