Article,
La necesidad de la naturalidad en la reformulación en la traducción jurídica en la 'era de la automatización' de las traducciones
The Journal of Specialised Translation, (2011)
Abstract
The translation of electronic contracts in which the applicable law is the target culture's one, either because there's a specific law or rule that protects the consumer or because a specific clause in the contract says so, presents a new paradigm in the translation of contracts—the instrumental translation in the legal domain. The theoretical framework developed by Christiane Nord, where she makes the distinction between instrumental and documentary translation, was of little practical application to the translation of contracts, since in most cases the translation of contracts is documentary. However, this new situation makes it necessary to re-examine the method and techniques that are most appropriate for the translation of contracts to which the applicable law is that of the target culture. In this article we describe the factors involved in the transfer of legal concepts, we examine the main approaches to solve terminological problems and we call the attention towards an aspect of translation that is often 'left behind' in the automatic or semiautomatic processes of translation and yet is essential for the target text to be a good quality translation: the need to make idiomatic translations.
