Legal Interpretation in Legal Translation? Contrasting Scholarly Views on the Interpretation of Source Legal Texts by Translators

This paper aims to answer certain questions raised by the contrasting views on translators’ interpretation of legal texts. While interpretation is presented by some scholars as an inherent element of legal translation, others argue that by interpreting, the legal translator oversteps their authority. There are also many other, more nuanced views. Therefore, the main research questions posed in the first section of the paper are whether the term ‘interpretation’ is understood uniformly by different scholars and – if not – what accounts for the differences. To find answers, various meanings of interpretation are analysed in the second section, and in the third section, an overview of the relevant legal and translation literature is provided. On this basis, certain reasons for the terminological confusion are identified in the fourth section. A particularly relevant point of controversy turns out to be whether the translator may interpret an indeterminate source legal text in the sense of opting for one of the few possible meanings. This point is the main focus of the fifth section, which discusses the translator’s authority and competence to resolve such problems and also includes two practical translation examples to better elucidate the theoretical considerations. The legal translator is presented as an active legal discourse participant who may be competent to interpret a legal text in the aforementioned way, but it is not their role to do so due to their specific position in the communicative situation of legal translation. The conclusions drawn in the sixth section emphasise the need for greater terminological clarity and the importance of the legal translator’s role and legal competence.

URL: http://www.skase.sk/