Translating Arabic Culture-Specific Legal Terms Into English: Challenges and Insights From Saudi Laws
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1606.33Keywords:
translation, legal, challenges, Saudi laws, culture-specific legal termsAbstract
Legal translation is a complex practice that involves transferring legal materials between two legal systems. It plays a pivotal role in facilitating cross-border legal processes and international business. However, it is fraught with numerous challenges arising from the inherently culture-dependent nature of law. This corpus-based study aimed at exploring the challenges associated with the English translation of Arabic culture-specific legal terms (CSLTs) used in six Saudi laws. The terms investigated in this study were categorized into four main themes: religious terms, institutions’ names, titles of laws, and miscellaneous terms. The qualitative analysis revealed four main challenges associated with translating these terms: the cultural gap between the source culture (SC) and target culture resulting from adopting different laws, being bound to the SC, the availability of more than one translation of an institution’s name on its official website, and the non-availability of an official website for an institution. Some of these challenges are related to translating all CSLTs in a particular category or more, whereas others are associated with translating only one or two CSLTs in a certain category. Understanding and addressing these challenges is of utmost importance as it directly impacts the target readers’ ability to comprehend translated legal texts accurately.
References
Abdel Fattah Salem, R. (2020). The translatability of culture-specific-terms in the Prophetic Hadiths: A case study of the translation of the meanings of Sahih Al-Bukhari. Journal of the Faculty of Arts, 55(2), 25-58. https://bfa.journals.ekb.eg/article_185921_023fbad685557d9385886a3b7a502e34.pdf
Aixela, J. (1996). Culture-specific items in translation. In R. Álvarez & M. Vidal (Eds.), Translation, power, subversion (Vol. 8, pp. 52-78). Multilingual Matters.
Al Aqad, M. (2014). Translation of legal texts between Arabic and English: The case study of marriage contracts. Arab World English Journal, 5(2), 110-121. https://bit.ly/47br4FN
Alhomoud, G. (2022). On translating and drafting Sharia legal terms and expressions in Saudi contracts. Education Research International, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1155/2022/7167970
Al-Khalafat, L., & Haider, A. (2022). A corpus-assisted translation study of strategies used in rendering culture-bound expressions in the speeches of King Abdullah II. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 12(1), 130-142. https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1201.16
Altarabin, M. (2018). Translating English legal lexical features into Arabic: Challenges and possibilities. AWEJ for Translation & Literary Studies, 2(2), 199-209. http://dx.doi.org/10.24093/awejtls/vol2no2.14
Alwazna, R. (2018). Translation and legal terminology: Techniques for coping with the untranslatability of legal terms between Arabic and English. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 32, 75-94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-018-9580-y
Ansary, A. (2020). Update: An overview of the Saudi Arabian legal system. Hauser Global Law School Program. Retrieved January 15, 2023, from https://www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex/saudi_arabia1.html
Ayyad, G., & Mahadi, T. (2020). Procedures of foreignizing culture-specific-terms in the Noble Qur’an. International Journal of Humanities, Philosophy and Language, 3(9), 8-13. https://bit.ly/4mu5lgX
Bahumaid, S. (2017). Culture-bound terms in Arabic-English translation: Difficulties and implications. Linguistics Applied, 6(2017), 25-39.
Baker, M. (2010). Reframing conflict in translation. In M. Baker (Ed.), Critical readings in translation studies (pp. 113-129). Routledge.
Basic Law of Governance. (1992). Bureau of Experts. Retrieved January 15, 2023, from https://t.ly/wcWVA.
Bureau of Experts. (n.d.). Most read laws. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://t.ly/ZFpbm.
Bureau of Experts. (2018). Mission. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://rb.gy/r7113m.
Bureau of Experts. (2022). The Official Translation Division. Retrieved April 7, 2023, from https://www.boe.gov.sa/en/translation/Pages/default.aspx.
Cheng, L., & Danesi, M. (2019). Exploring legal discourse: A sociosemiotic (re)construction. Social Semiotics, 29(3), 279-285. https://doi.org/10.1080/10350330.2019.1587841
Cheng, L., Sin, K., & Wagner, A. (Eds.). (2016). The Ashgate handbook of legal translation. Routledge.
Chirilă, C. (2014). Errors and difficulties in translating legal texts. Management Strategies Journal, 26(4), 487-492. http://www.strategiimanageriale.ro/papers/140464.pdf
Collins. (n.d.). Law term. In Collins English dictionary. Retrieved April 30, 2023, from https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/law-term.
Companies Law. (2015). Bureau of Experts. https://rebrand.ly/29gqdu8
Echihi, C., & Salah, K. (2017). Investigating allusion in Hawthorne’s “Scarlet Letter” (In light of Leppihalme’s strategies of translating allusions): Case study: Translation of Djadhebia Sedki [Master’s thesis]. Kasdi Merbah University of Ouargla. https://dspace.univ-ouargla.dz/jspui/bitstream/123456789/16556/1/chihi-Khaldi.pdf
El-Farahaty, H. (2015). Arabic–English–Arabic legal translation. Routledge.
El-Farahaty, H. (2016). Translating lexical legal terms between English and Arabic. International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 29, 473-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11196-016-9460-2
Enforcement Law. (2012). Bureau of Experts. Retrieved January 22, 2023, from https://rebrand.ly/iq55db8.
Eterno, J., & Das, D. (Eds.). (2011). Police practices in global perspective. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers.
Fantin, R. (2023). 3 Ways to translate names of institutions
