From Jiří Levý’s model of translatorial decision-making to Optimality Theory: an application to legal translation

ABSTRACT

Jiří Levý’s article Translation as a decision process (1967), one of the earliest contributions to the topic of decision-making in translation, anticipates a model that was proposed more than two decades later: Optimality Theory. This linguistic theory offers a framework for resolving conflicts in grammar by replacing absolute rules with violable constraints whose interaction leads to the selection of an acceptable output. The philosophy of Optimality Theory can be successfully applied to the process of translatorial decision-making, which consists in proposing a set of candidates and selecting the best one by virtue of constraints imposed by the translation strategy adopted. The article shows how such a constraint-based approach can be used in legal translation. A tentative set of constraints (Minimum equivalence, Near-equivalence, Literal, Identity, Functional, Transparent, Neutral) is used to evaluate French translation candidates for an English legal term, applying two different strategies: documentary (source-culture oriented) and instrumental (target-culture oriented). The formalism of Optimality Theory, while mimicking real-life decision-making processes, makes the selection of optimal equivalents more transparent and coherent. However, it is only one of the possible tools that legal translators and translation students have at their disposal.

KEYWORDS:

• Decision-making
• equivalents
• Jiří Levý
• legal translation
• Optimality Theory
• translation strategy

Acknowledgments

This research was carried out under the Cooperatio “Linguistics” project (Charles University, Prague).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. A rule applicable to a legal situation or a legal relationship between persons or legal entities where it is not provided that a more particular rule governs this situation or relationship.

2. Rules normally applicable in private law.

3. A practice, a custom or a habit which, with time and thanks to popular consent and adherence, becomes a rule of law, although it has not been enacted in the form of a regulation by public authorities.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by Charles University [Cooperatio ”Linguistics” project].

Notes on contributors

Tomáš Duběda

Tomáš Duběda is an associate professor of Linguistics at the Institute of Translation Studies, Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic). In his research, he specialises in contrastive linguistics (Czech/French), legal translation, and non-native translation. He has authored two books on phonological typology, and co-authored a book on non-native translation. His recent articles, published e.g. in Meta, The Interpreter and Translator Trainer and Target, address, among others, the quality of non-native translation and its social framing, the stylistic competence of non-native translators, the role of revision in legal translation, and the typology of legal equivalents. Apart from his academic activities, he is also a practising translator and a lecturer in life-long learning courses for legal translators in the Czech Republic. Professional website: https://utrl.ff.cuni.cz/cs/ustavkatedra/lide/zamestnanci/doc-phdr-tomas-dubeda-ph-d/