8/12/2008

Commonly Seen Legalese

They are commonly seen in the Definition part in most legal documents. 100% authentic legalese, rarely in daily English discourses. However, it is a legal translator's job to put things like this into another language in a PROPER way.

But, how to define "a proper way"?  For me, two rules are essential, i.e. Rule 1: the translation must make sense; Rule 2: if the translation does not make sense, do it again.

reference to any gender includes a reference to all other genders

"凡提及任何性别,均指所有其他性别" or anything similar is what I encountered most in my work. What makes things funny, on more than one occasion, I found such 'translation' in the proofread or reviewed documents, or in the so-called TEMPLATES.

As a native Chinese speaker, born and brought up in China and taught at Chinese speaking schools and universities, I felt sorry reading such Chinese in a very formal legal document. What disgusted me even more is that some guys hold such a belief that 'legal documents' are not supposed to be understood by non-lawyer readers.

Rule No.2 applies here.

"本协议中文本中名词无性别之分。"

Does my version sound better in the attempt to make the translation make sense?

The point is: dare you, if you are a legal translator hired on with a law firm, use it in your work?

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