Step-by-step approach to teaching legal translation: the case of understanding English legal texts

Figures & data

Figure 1. The legal translation process (Chromá 2011, 34).

Figure 2. The translation process (Tomášek 1991, 149).

Table 1. Overview of exercises proposed.

Exercise No.	Exercise Objective	Exercise Type
1	To raise trainees’ awareness of the syntactical complexity of English legal texts and check their understanding.	Individual exercise
2	To provide trainees with tools to analyse syntactically complex legal texts, and to learn strategies to reformulate the texts.	Pair work/group work
3	To raise trainees’ awareness of the function of cross-referencing devices in English legal texts and their meaning.	Individual exercise
4	To raise trainees’ awareness of the use and meaning of complex prepositions in English legal texts and provide them with tools for reformulation using simpler language.	Individual exercise
5	To raise trainees’ awareness of the meaning(s) of provided that in English legal texts and provide them with strategies for reformulation.	Pair work/group work
6	To raise trainees’ awareness of the role of interpretation provisions in contract and show them how the metalanguage used in such provisions needs to be treated in translation.	Pair work
7	To raise trainees’ awareness of the multiple meanings of deem in English legal texts, provide them with strategies to understand the correct meaning and choose the translation equivalent.	Pair work/group work

Figure 3. Sample task for Exercise 1.

Figure 4. Sample task for Exercise 2 (a).

Figure 5. Long sentence analysis (Matochová 2018, 21).

Figure 6. Sample task for Exercise 2 (b).

Figure 7. Sample task for Exercise 3.

Figure 8. Diagram for establishing the meaning of subject to.

Table 2. Reformulation of sentences with subject to.

Subject to (reformulation)
(a) Subject to paragraph (b), the tenant must pay rent every Monday. (b) Where a Monday is a public holiday, the tenant may pay the rent on Tuesday of that week.	(a) The tenant must pay rent every Monday. (b) However, where a Monday is a public holiday, the tenant may pay the rent on Tuesday of that week.

Figure 9. Sample task for Exercise 4.

Table 3. Overview of the use of provisos in legal drafting.

Proviso (correct use)	Condition (incorrect use)
The Seller shall deliver sales reports to the Buyer on the last business day of each week, provided, however, that such delivery may be made on the first day of the following week if the number of business days in the week covered by the report is less than five.	The Seller may enter into leases with respect to the Subject Assets, provided, however, that the Seller’s interest under such leases is transferable to the Buyer.
In a proviso, the words are often underlined in American English. Proviso could be rephrased with notwithstanding.	However may not be used. Provided is acceptable in such clauses as a synonym for if or on condition that.

Figure 10. Sample task for Exercise 5.

Figure 11. Sample task for Exercise 6.

Table 4. Overview of legal presumptions and legal fictions and the corresponding linguistic forms.

	Rebuttable presumption	Conclusive presumption	Legal fiction
Definition	A presumption that may be refuted by evidence to the contrary (Merriam-Webster 1996)	A presumption that the law does not allow to be rebutted	Something assumed in law to be fact irrespective of the truth or accuracy of that assumption
Example	Presumption of innocence	A child below the age of X cannot be held criminally responsible.	The rights of adoptive parents (Duhaime, n.d.).
Verb(s) used to express in Czech	Má se za to, že	Platí	Hledí se jako na
Verb(s) used to express in English (as identified by Chromá 2014, 79–84)	Is deemed Is presumed	Is deemed Is conclusively presumed Is treated as Is regarded as Is taken to be	Is deemed Is regarded as Is treated as Is considered as Is valid in law as if Has effect as if

Figure 12. Sample task for Exercise 7 (a).

Figure 13. Sample task for Exercise 7 (a).

Chromá, M. 2011. “Synonymy and Polysemy in Legal Terminology and Their Applications to Bilingual and Bijural Translation.” Research in Language 9 (1): 31–50. https://doi.org/10.2478/v10015-011-0004-2.

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Tomášek, M. 1991. “Právo – Interpretace a překlad.” In Acta Universitatis Carolinae: Philologica; Translatologica Pragensia 5, edited by M. Hrala, 147–154. Prague: Karolinum.

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Matochová, V. 2018. “Kontrastivní analýza licenční smlouvy s koncovým uživatelem v angličtině a češtině z pohledu překladu.” Bachelor’s thesis, Palacký University Olomouc.

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Chromá, M. 2014. Právní překlad v teorii a praxi: Nový občanský zákoník. Prague: Karolinum.

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