An-Najah National University 
Faculty of Graduate Studies            

Legal Translation as an Act of Communication: The 
Translation of Contracts between English and Arabic        

By 
Maram Tawfiq Awad Fakhouri      

Supervised by  
Dr. Abdul Kareem Daragemeh       

MA thesis in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of 
Master of Applied linguistics &Translation Faculty of Graduate 
Studies, at An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. 

2008 





 
iii

Dedication   

This thesis is dedicated to my husband and love, Yousef, very special 

thanks for living with the thesis as well as me and for his love, constant 

support and patience. 



 
iv

Acknowledgment  

This thesis would not have been possible without the support of many 

people. I wish to express my gratitude to Dr. Abdul Kareem 

Daragemeh who was abundantly helpful and offered invaluable 

assistance, support and guidance. Deepest gratitude are also due to the 

members of the supervisory committee, Dr. Nabil Alawi, Dr. Akram 

Dawoud and Prof. Qustandi Shoumali without whose knowledge and 

assistance this study would not have been successful. 

I would also like to express my deepest gratitude for the constant 

support, understanding and encouragement that I received from my 

father, my mother, my brothers, my sister and my husband through 

the duration of my studies.     



 
v

  
:  

Legal Translation as an Act of Communication: The 

Translation of Contracts between English and Arabic 

   

 : 

       

.  

Declaration

  

The work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the 

researcher's own work, and has not been submitted elsewhere for any other 

degree or qualification.             

:   Student's name: 

:              Signature: 

:                                                                   Date:    



 
vi

Table of contents 

Page content No. 
iii Dedication  
iv Acknowledgment  
v Declaration  
vi Table of contents  

viii List of tables  
ix List of Appendix  
x List of abbreviations  
xi Abstract  
1 Chapter One  
1 Introduction 1.1  
2 The Present Study 1.2  
2 Statement of Problem 1.2.1  
3 Purpose of the Study 1.2.2  
3 Significance of the Study 1.2.3  
4 Limitations of the Study 1.2.4  
5 Description of Methodology 1.2.5  
5 Review of Related Literature 1.2.6  
12 Layout 1.2.7  
13 Chapter Two 

Features of Legal Language  
13 Introduction 2.1  
16 General Features of English Legal Language 2.2  
16 Lexical Features 2.2.1  
20 Syntactic Features of English Legal Texts 2.2.2  
24 Discourse-level Features 2.2.3 
25 General Features of Arabic Legal Language 2.3  
26 Lexical Features 2.3.1 
27 Syntactic Features 2.3.2  
28 Discourse-Level Features   2.3.3 
30 The Plain English Movement 2.4  
30 History and Origins 2.4.1  
31 Plain English Movement Proponents 2.4.2  
36 Criticism to Plain English Movement  2.4.3 
37 Chapter Three 

Legal Translation  
37 Approaches to Legal Translation 3.1  
39 Legal Translation and Text Typology 3.1.1  
40 Legal Translation and the Concept of Legal 

Equivalence 
3.1.2  



 
vii

Page content No. 
42 Pragmatics and Legal Translation 3.1.3  
47 Translation Procedures 3.2  
50 Contracts 3.4  
54 Sender/Receiver Relations in Contracts 3.5  
56 Chapter Four 

Discussion of Findings  
56 The Corpus and Methodology 4.1  
58 Certification of Legal translators in Palestine 4.2  
60 Discussion and Findings 4.3  
61 Purely Technical Terms 4.3.1  
63 Semi-technical or Mixed Terms 4.3.2  
66 Everyday Vocabulary in Legal Texts 4.3.3  
69 Doublets and Triplets 4.3.4  
70 Synonyms and Quasi-synonyms 4.3.5  
71 Legal Formulas 4.3.6  
73 References 4.3.7  
75 Here- and There- Compounds 4.3.8  
76 Speech Acts in the Translation of Contracts 4.4  
77 Directive Acts 4.4.1  
77  Direct Directives     4.4.1.1 
81 Indirect Directives 4.4.1.2  
84 Commissive Acts 4.4.2  
85 Constitutive Acts 4.4.3  
88 Legal Translation and  Skopos Theory 4.5  
93 Law in Literature 4.5.1  

100 Legal Texts in Newspaper Advertisement 4.5.2  
109 Professional Translator 4.5.3  
117 Chapter Five 

Summary of Conclusions and Recommendations  
117 Summary of Conclusions 5.1  
120 Recommendations 5.2  
121 References  
129 Appendix  

    



 
viii

List of tables 

No. Table Page 
Table (1)  Purely technical terms 62 

Table (2)  Semi-technical terms 64 

Table (3)  Everyday or mixed terms 67 

Table (4)  Obligation 78 

Table (5)  Prohibition 80 

Table (6)  Permission 82 

Table (7)  Commissive acts 84 

Table (8)  Constitutive acts 86 

   



 
ix

List of Appendix 

No. Appendix Page 
Appendix (1) Contract of Selling a Real-estate 129 
Appendix (2) Contract of Lease 132 
Appendix (3) Work contract 138 
Appendix (4) Legal dictionaries 142 
Appendix (5) 

 

143 
Appendix (6) Lease Contract 146 
Appendix (7)

 

Lease Contract 150 
Appendix (8)

 

Lease Contract 153 
Appendix (9) A contract of Real Estate Selling 159 
Appendix (10) Contract of Selling a Real Estate  161 
Appendix (11) Property Sale Contract 163 
Appendix (12) Work Contract 166 
Appendix (13)

 

Work Contract 168 
Appendix (14)

 

Work Contract 170 
Appendix (15) Power of Attorney  172 

    



 
x 

List of abbreviations  

ST  Source text 

TT  Target text 

SL  Source language 

TL  Target language    



 
xi

Legal Translation as an Act of Communication: The Translation of 
Contracts between English and Arabic 

By 
Maram Tawfiq Awad Fakhouri 

Supervised by 

Dr. Abdul Kareem Daragemeh  

Abstract 

The importance attached to the letter of the law has meant that most 

studies of legal translation have been devoted to questions of terminology, 

while pragmatic and functional considerations tend to be disregarded. The 

purpose of the present study is to display how pragmatic and functional 

considerations have an important role in legal translation and should be 

taken into account when determining translation strategies. The 

representative data was in the form of three authentic contracts written in 

Arabic. These are a Real-Estate Sales Contract, a Lease Contract and an 

Employment Contract. Each text was translated by three certified legal 

translators from English into Arabic to produce nine different versions. A 

comparison was made of how each translator approached problematic areas 

of legal translation in all nine texts. After that, the study explored the 

applicability of Speech Act theory to legal translation by comparing the 

translation of regulative acts in all nine texts. As for the translation from 

English into Arabic, a group of graduate students studying applied 

Linguistics and Translation at An-Najah National University were asked to 

translate a "Power of Attorney" text as an assignment. In addition, a 

professional translator was commissioned to translate the same text. They 

were all asked to translate this text twice: once as part of a Legal thriller 

novel and another as a classified newspaper advertisement. The translated 



 
xii

versions were scrutinized for ability to perform these new functions in the 

target language. The study has shown that the application of pragmatic and 

functional perspectives to legal translation can provide valuable insights to 

the translator, reinforcing the premise that legal translation is essentially an 

act of communication. 



Chapter One 

1.1 Introduction 

The approaches to legal translation have been mostly oriented 

towards the preservation of the letter rather than effective rendering in the 

target language, legal texts having always been accorded the status of 

sensitive texts and been treated as such. A challenge to the unquestioned 

application of a strict literal approach to legal translation came only in the 

nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (Sarcevic 2000: 24). Thus, a 

change in perspective occurred with a gradual shift towards a more flexible 

attitude, increasingly characterized by recipient-orientedness.  In this 

context, the translation of a legal text will seek to achieve identity of 

intended meaning between original and translation, i.e. identity of 

propositional content as well as identity of legal effects (Sager 1993: 180) 

while at the same time pursuing the objective of reflecting the intents of the 

person or body that has produced the original. This corresponds to identity 

of propositional content, of illocutionary and perlocutionary force, and of 

intentionality (de Beaugrande-Dressler 1981: 3-11; 113). 

In actual practice of legal translation, the criteria guiding the 

translator s choices are prevalently functional, in that account is mainly 

taken of the function that the translated text will have to perform in the 

target culture. Hence, in the translation of contracts, regulating the 

relationships between subjects in different nations, the original text agreed 

between the parties is not necessarily authoritative; a contract as such, will 

be interpreted according to the law governing it, regardless of the language 

in which it is written, and will be drawn up according to the rules and 



 
2

drafting conventions of the national law applicable to it. The source text 

offers the input on the basis of which a new autonomous text is created in 

the translation language taking into account mainly the needs of the final 

users and the requirements of the context (Garzone 2003: 8).  

1.2 The Present Study 

1.2.1 Statement of Problem 

Translating legal texts is regarded by many researchers as one of the 

most arduous endeavors, "combining the inventiveness of literary 

translation with the terminological precision of technical translation" 

(Harvey 2002). This is mainly due to the specificity of legal language and, 

in particular, the system-bound nature of legal terminology. Legal  

documents entail specific laws, rights or obligations, their language layout 

and wording should be precise, expressive and can have no other 

interpretations apart from the ones stated. Unlike literary language, legal 

language needs no ambiguity or figures of speech. It is, thus, according to 

some linguists, the least communicative. Written legal documents are 

characterized by brevity, economy and neatness. This neatness and clarity 

is namely intended to prevent fraud, additions, omissions or alterations in 

the text (Crystal and Davy 1969).  

Like other disciplines, legal translation has its own vocabulary and 

can be regarded as a discipline on its own. There are specific forms and 

stabilized procedures for translating court proceedings, law, legal contracts 

and agreements. The text is formulated in a special language or 

sublanguage that is subject to special syntactic, semantic and pragmatic 



 
3

rules (Sarcevic 2000:8). Thus, a legal translator must be able to use 

language effectively to express legal actions and achieve the desired effect. 

For this to be achieved, the translator's goals should not be confined to 

lexical or syntactic precision, but, more importantly, he/she should strive to 

integrate pragmatic considerations into the overall communicative process.   

1.2.2 Purpose of the Study 

This study aims at demonstrating how pragmatic and functional 

considerations are important in legal translation and should be taken into 

account when determining translation strategies. It argues that legal 

translation involves more than terminological and syntactic issues. It is not 

a mere process of linguistic transcoding

 

but an act of communication in 

the mechanism of law (Sarcevic 12000:55). The study addresses the 

significance of context as a determinative factor in the process of 

communicating the intended meaning through translation. Another 

proposition to be scrutinized is that translation commission may entail a 

change of function of the ST, which may have several implications for the 

process and the outcome of legal translation. 

1.2.3 Significance of the Study 

The significance of this study lies in the fact that, to the best of my 

knowledge, there is a paucity of research on legal translation, especially the 

translation of contracts, between Arabic and English from a communicative 

angle. In general, the literature on legal translation is meager indeed. Most 

of the significant reference textbooks on legal translation are solely devoted 

to questions of terminology, while textual and pragmatic considerations 



 
4

tend to be ignored. The discipline of legal translation has so far been 

theoretical to the extent that no tool for explaining the underlying 

functional apparatus of legal discourse has been constructed. This study 

presents a recommendation that may provide for a more adequate and 

integrated output, as regards function, and pragmatic considerations. It may 

conform to previous studies by appraising the language of law, though 

more thoroughly. However, this is directed towards demonstrating how 

such standardized legal language features can still be tamed to serve the 

ultimate goal of successfully communicating the message across languages 

as intended and as commissioned. Unlike previous studies that were 

devoted to systemizing and mathematizing legal translation, this study 

focuses on communicative and functional approaches to contractual 

translation between English and Arabic. 

1.2.4 Limitations of the Study 

The study is only a preliminary step in investigating pragmatic and 

functional implications for legal translations. This thesis focuses on certain 

patterns of legal texts, more specifically contracts. It does not address 

issues such as Islamic contracts, since these have been the focus of many 

previous studies. It will exclusively be based on experimentation and 

analysis of practical translation within an interdisciplinary framework. The 

study tackles the modern translation and applied linguistics theories such as 

pragmatics and functional theories that were never considered in relation to 

legal translation between English and Arabic. The absence of previous 

studies as such is the major limitation of this study, hence it is very reliant 

on empirical and observational examination.  



 
5

1.2.5 Description of Methodology  

This study is analytical and is validated through empirical and 

observational results. I will devote a significant part of my thesis to 

peculiarities of legal texts, particularly the differences of drafting contracts 

between the two languages. The representative data will be in the form of 

three authentic contracts written in Arabic. These are a Real-Estate Sales 

Contract, a Lease Contract and an Employment Contract. Each text was 

translated by three certified legal translators to produce nine different 

versions. Those versions will be put to ample analysis. The analysis of the 

data and the judgment of adequacy are conducted through examining and 

comparing how each translator approached problematic areas of legal 

translation in all nine texts. After that, the study explores the applicability 

of Speech Act theory to legal translation by comparing the translation of 

regulative acts in all nine texts. As for the translation from English into 

Arabic, a group of graduate students studying applied Linguistics and 

Translation at An-Najah National University are asked to translate a 

"Power of Attorney" text as an assignment. In addition, a professional 

translator is asked to translate the same text as a commission. The 

translated versions are scrutinized for functional sufficiency in the target 

language.  

1.2.6 Review of Related Literature 

The literature on legal translation is meager indeed. This can be a 

priori to writers

 

contention that most technical genres display similar 

features both linguistically and stylistically. Research on legal translation 

between English and Arabic is predominantly restricted to purely semantic 



 
6

or syntactic issues. For instance, Abu-Ghazal (1996) outlined a number of 

syntactic and semantic problems in legal translation from English into 

Arabic, by analyzing graduate students

 
translations at Yarmouk University 

of a number of UN resolutions. He chiefly aimed at detecting the linguistic 

and translation problems facing translators in general and MA students in 

particular. He concluded that such students should be exposed to intense 

training in legal translation before practicing it as a career.  

Fargahal and Shunnaq (1992 and 1999) focused on the problematic 

areas in translating UN legal documents as encountered by MA translation 

students at Yarmouk University in their comprehensive examination. 

According to them, these areas fall into three categories: syntax-related 

problems, layout-related problems, and tenor-related problems. Their 

approach is, more or less, similar to Abu-Ghazal s.  

Hatim, Shunnaq and Buckley (1998) occupied themselves with 

listing legal texts and their model translations, without setting foot in the 

field of legal translation theory.  

Al-Bitar (1995) illustrated how legal language differs from other 

common-core English varieties. In her thesis, she studied twelve bilateral 

legal agreements and contracts signed during the years 1962-1993. She 

investigated two main areas of nominal group in addition to other 

grammatical units: complexity of the noun phrase and type of modification. 

Her main conclusions was that the differences lay in the heavy use of 

complex noun phrases and the high frequency of wh-relative clauses and 

prepositional relative clauses as post-nominal modifiers of the finite in 

legal texts (47-62 ). 



 
7

Emery(1989) explored the linguistic features of Arabic legal 

documentary texts and compared them with their English counterparts. 

Emery ended up recommending that trainee translators should develop a 

sense of appreciation of structural and stylistic differences between English 

and Arabic discourse to help produce acceptable translations of legal 

documents. Though he only made limited inroads into the area of legal 

translation theory or practice, Emery s article is actually one of the very 

few works that investigated general features of Arabic legal language, an 

area of research that has inexplicably been disregarded by Arab translators 

and theorists.  

One of the pioneering studies in the language of law frequently 

referred to in the literature is that carried out by Mellinkoff in 1963. In his 

book, Mellinkoff was concerned with what the language of the law is, 

describing its characteristics and mannerisms. He also investigated the 

history of legal language, and then he brought the language of the law 

down into the practice. 

In her study, Gustafsson (1975) scrutinized certain syntactic  features 

that might contribute to the complexity of legal English.  She concluded 

that the length of sentences and the occurrence of clauses are not the only 

factors that contributed to the specialty of legal English. She included 

additional factors.  

In their book, Crystal and Davy (1969) appraised different varieties 

of English language uses. The authors devoted one chapter to the language 

of legal documents, supported with examples taken from an insurance 

policy and a purchase agreement. They wrote "of all the uses of language, 



 
8

it [legal language] is perhaps the least communicative, in that it is designed 

not so much to enlighten language-users at large as to allow one expert to 

register information for scrutiny by another" (1969: 112). A legal text for 

them exhibits a high degree of linguistic conservation, included in written 

instruction such as court judgments, police reports, constitutions, charters, 

treaties, protocols and regulation (p.205). They described legal texts as 

formulaic, predictable and almost mathematic.  

Leo Hickey (1998:224) argued that any translation of a legal text 

must be able to affect its readers the way the ST was able of doing to its 

readers. She wrote, The translator must ask herself how the original text 

reader would have been affected and ensure an analogical TT reader will be 

affected similarly by his reading of the text but not by any other means 

(Hickey 1998:224-225).  Hickey failed to see that a TT might be directed 

towards different readers in a different context. In this case, it is pointless 

to pursue a similar effect on the part of the translator. 

The above studies ignored pragmatic factors related to legal 

discourse. Such an approach, which extensively stresses the sensitivity of 

legal texts, may contribute to the creation of misconceptions about legal 

translation. In other words, it helps depict it as a process of interlingual 

transfer (Sarcevic 2000:2) within an array of restrictions.  

Newmark is another theorist of general translation to comment on 

legal translation. He noted a difference in the translation of legal 

documents for information purposes and those, which are concurrently 

valid in the TL community. Concerning foreign laws, wills, and 

conveyances translated for information purpose only, Newmark suggested 



 
9

that literal or semantic translation, as he referred to it, is necessary. On the 

other hand, he stressed that the formal register of the TL must be 

respected in dealing with documents that are to be concurrently valid in the 

TL community (EEC law, contracts, international agreements, and 

patents). In Newmark s view, such translations require the communicative 

approach that is target language-oriented (1982: 47). In this regard, 

Newmark is one of the few linguists to recognize that the status of a legal 

text is instrumental in determining its use in practice. 

Juliane House (1997) discerned between two basic types of 

translation strategies: overt translation in which the target text receivers are 

overtly not the same as the source text receivers; and covert translation in 

which the target text receivers are the same as the source text receivers. 

According to House, the latter group includes texts that are not addressed 

exclusively to the source texts receivers, such as commercial texts, 

scientific texts, journalistic articles etc (1991:194) although House does 

not mention parallel legal texts, they would also belong to this group, in 

fact all special purpose texts would fall under her category of covert 

translation.  

Dickins et al (2003) offered a progressive representation of various 

translation problems, accompanied by lots of practical work in developing 

underlying principles for solving the problems. Theoretical issues were 

discussed only in so far as they relate to developing proficiency in method. 

Although a wide range of texts were dealt with in this book, little attention 

was directed towards legal texts in the form of  pedagogic practice within a 

framework of more general linguistic issues ignoring the peculiarity of 

legal texts and treating them like other ISP texts. 



 
10 

Almost all of the above mentioned theorists and writers who have 

tackled the area of legal translation between English and Arabic,  attached 

great importance to the letter of the law and thus are devoted to questions 

of terminological or syntactic accuracy, while disregarding pragmatic, 

functional notions. The following review demonstrates how some modern 

writers and theorists have reconnoitered communicative approaches to legal 

translation between English and some European languages, but not Arabic.    

Mellinkof's Legal Writing: Sense and Nonsense outlined basic 

rules of Plain English drafting. Most points were illustrated by contrasting 

samples of poor drafting in briefs, contracts and judicial opinions with 

versions of the same material rewritten in ordinary English. He wrote 

describing ready legal forms [t]hey are a quick, cheap substitute for 

knowledge and independent thinking ( Mellinkoff 1982: 101). He also 

defined four elements of legalese: formalisms, such as now comes; archaic 

words, such as hereby; redundancies, such as each and every; and Latin 

words, such as per curiam.  

By the same token, Butt and Castle (2006) burrowed into the roots of 

traditional legal language and its peculiar characteristics that make legal 

documents aloof from its users. They proposed a step-by-step guide to 

drafting in the modern style, using examples from four types of legal 

documents: leases, company constitutions, wills and conveyances. 

Moreover, they emphasized the benefits of drafting in plain language and 

confirming the fruitfulness of its use. Like Mellinkoff (1982), they 

surveyed the reasons for the current alarming state of legal drafting, as well 

as provided guidance on how to draft well. Their book is the most recent 



 
11

addition to the Plain English Movement that will be discussed in the next 

chapter. It argues that it is actually "safe" and constructive to break away 

from old ways of legal drafting into simpler, more communicative ones. 

According to the Skopos Theory of translation introduced  by 

Vermeer the prime principle determining any translation process is the 

purpose (Skopos) of the overall translational action (Nord 1997, 27). The 

translation procedures adopted for contracts, are subordinate to the 

pragmatic conditions they have to meet. However, strict literal translation 

is not necessarily the rule for this category of texts. In a context that is 

characterized by the absence of legal validity of the translated version, 

there may be situations where a free approach can be taken, if the aim is 

only that of making the addressee of the target text aware of the function of 

the original in the source-language culture.  

In her book New Approach to Legal Translation (2000), which 

contained a comprehensive survey of legal translation, Sarcevic wrote, in 

connection with parallel legal texts, "While lawyers cannot expect 

translators to produce parallel texts which are equal in meaning, they do 

expect them to produce parallel texts which are equal in legal effect. Thus 

the translator's main task is to produce a text that will lead to the same legal 

effects in practice" (2000: 71). 

As Sarcevic indicated, "the basic unit of legal translation is the text, 

not the word" (2000: 5). Terminological equivalence has an important role 

to play, but 'legal equivalence' used to describe a relationship at the level of 

the text may have an even greater importance (Sarcevic, 2000: 48). 



 
12 

Sarcevic suggested that the traditional principle of fidelity has 

recently been challenged by the introduction of new bilingual drafting 

methods, which have succeeded in revolutionizing legal translation. 

Contrary to freer forms of translation, legal translators are still guided by 

the principle of fidelity. However, their first consideration is no longer 

fidelity to the source text but to guarantee the effectiveness of multilingual 

communication in the legal field (2000:16). The translator must be able "to 

understand not only what the words mean and what a sentence means, but 

also what legal effect it is supposed to have, and how to achieve that legal 

effect in the other language (Sarcevic 2000:70-71). 

1.2.7 Layout  

Chapter two incorporates a detailed review of various aspects of the 

language of law. Lexical, syntactic and discourse-level features of English 

and Arabic legal language are investigated. Chapter three explores 

approaches to legal translation such as text typology, the concept of legal 

equivalence and pragmatics. It also sheds light on the legal structure of 

contracts.   

Chapter four incorporates the findings of this study together with a 

discussion of these findings. It scrutinizes the applicability of pragmatics to 

the translation of contracts through comparing and criticizing the output of 

three professional translators. In addition, the relevance of functional 

theories to the translation of contracts is assessed through assaying the 

translations of student translators with the translation of a professional 

translator. Finally, chapter five presents a summary of the results and the 

recommendations. 



 
13

Chapter Two 

Features of Legal Language 

2.1 Introduction  

Legal language has aroused interest for thousands of years from 

several angles (Sarcevic 2000). "Law is necessarily bound to language, and 

in that sense legal language has existed as long as the law. In certain 

contexts, the language aspect of the law dominates: legal translation, legal 

lexicography, and legal rhetoric" (Mattila 2006:6). Legal discourse, 

generally speaking, is the type of discourse employed by lawyers, courts, 

judges, police, legislators and law-makers. Therefore, this kind of discourse 

does not only state in plain words the conditions of pacific social 

coexistence among human beings, the prevalence of order, prevention of 

crime or cruelty, "but also regulates the foundations of social relationships 

such as marriage, contracts, agreements and civil rights such as wills and 

inheritance" (Crystal and Davy 1969:193). A more comprehensive 

definition of what constitutes a legal text would cover documents, which 

are, or may become, part of the judicial process: for instance, contracts, 

wills, court documents, witness statements and expert reports, which are 

bread-and-butter activities for lawyers and legal translators (Kasirer 

2000: 65). 

Legal discourse has ritualistic, archaic and extremely formal 

features. Systematic resort is made to standardized forms, often archaic and 

uncommon in ordinary plain texts, stock phrases, rigid collocations and 

specialized cohesive devices for anaphoric and cataphoric as well as 

homophoric and inter-textual reference (Garzone 2003:3-4). Legal 



 
14

language has been called a "sublanguage ", a "dialect" or a "language" by 

some linguists, and "register" by others (Van Dijk 1981:279-288). These 

frozen patterns of language which do not tolerate much variation in form 

(Baker 1992) are even sometimes referred to as routines (Hatim and Mason 

1997: 190). Another feature of legal discourse that sets it apart from other 

kinds of specialized discourse is its intricacy and obscurity, reflecting the 

complexity of legal thought and reasoning, but also the verbosity and 

haughtiness traditionally associated with the legal and judicial professions 

(Mellinkoff 1963: 25). 

Legal texts are formulated in a special language that is subject to 

particular syntactic, semantic and pragmatic constraints. Furthermore, legal 

language is system bound, and hence is perceived of as a product of a 

specific history and culture. The language of the law mainly involves 

"parole" rather than "langue". Recognizing that "parole" is inseparable 

from "judicial acts", the language of law can be described as a "language of 

action". Sarcevic states that "the primary role of language in normative 

legal texts is to prescribe legal actions, the performance of which is 

intended to achieve a specific goal" (Sarcevic 2000:133). Similarly, 

Beaugrande and Dressler also regard a legal text as a "communicative 

occurrence" produced at a given time and place and intended to serve a 

specific function. It is the function of legal texts that make them special: 

they are instruments of law (1981:3).  

The written legal text is, above all, intended to be read, and 

understood perhaps only after several rereadings. Crystal and Davy express 

this idea as follows: 



 
15

It is essentially visual language, meant to be scrutinized in 

silence: it is, in fact, largely unspeakable at first sight, and 

anyone who tries to produce a spoken version is likely to have 

to go through a process of repeated and careful scanning in 

order to sort out the grammatical relationship which give the 

necessary clues to adequate phrasing (1969: 194). 

Legal language has its fixed conventions: one law is linguistically 

very similar to another and variations are minimal. According to Joos 

(1962), legislative language clearly falls in the category of formal or even 

frozen style. Identifying the linguistic characteristics, or style indicators, of 

legal English on the basis of which it is possible to define it as formal or 

frozen, and distinguish it from other variants, has been one line of 

investigation during the last few years. It often contains a number of 

characteristics not commonly found in everyday language. Some of them 

may give rise to ambiguity in the meaning of the text, thus causing 

problems in the comprehension and the translation of those texts. As one of 

the varieties of legal texts, contracts not only share many of these 

characteristics, but also contain others that may be unique to their genre. 

English legal language, like its Arabic counterpart, is a complex type 

of discourse. As discussed later in section 1.4, native speakers of English 

have recently reacted against the perceived obscurity of the language of the 

law. The "Plain English Campaign" has had some effect on legislature and 

judiciary, which have been forced to clarify and simplify legal language. 

Such notion has been totally absent in Arabic legal language, which, in 

most Arab countries, follows a Western legal system whose conventions of 

language and style are considered too sacred to be challenged yet. 

However, in the West, many lawyers continue to argue, with some 



 
16

justification, that technical accuracy is an essential prerequisite of good 

justice, and that if linguistic precision is watered down to suit the demands 

of an uncomprehending majority, legal uncertainty will disappear (Sarcevic 

2000).  

The next few pages present overviews of some of the main features 

of legal English and Arabic at the level of vocabulary, syntax and 

discourse. The main emphasis will be on the lexical and syntactic features, 

since this is the base level in legislative writing, consisting of relatively 

independent and context-free sentences. Therefore, many of the inter-

sentence dependencies characteristic of more neutral varieties of language 

play a less important role in legal discourse. Still such relationships do 

occur and will have to be considered. They are also relevant, because they 

may throw further light on some peculiarities of the syntax.  

2.2 General Features of English Legal Language 

It is hard to fully appreciate the nature of legal language without 

having some familiarity with its features. The following sections describe 

the general characteristic features of English and Arabic legal language. 

2.2.1 Lexical Features 

English legal terminology is naturally Anglo-Saxon with all the 

characteristic features of native vocabulary. "The range of vocabulary in 

legal language is extremely wide, since almost anything may become the 

subject of legislation" (Crystal and Davy 1969:207). According to 

Malinkoff and other linguists (Van Dijk: 1981, Crystal and Davy 1969, 

Malinkoff 1963), legal language has the following lexical features: 



 
17

1. Frequent use of Old and Middle English words: 

Archaic expressions borrowed from old English, and are not 

normally used in modern Standard English, except for legal documents and 

perhaps poetry, are one of the distinctive features of legal language. Words 

such as, hereof, thereof, and whereof (and further derivatives, including -at, 

-in, -after, -before, -with, -by, -above, -on, -upon etc) are not often used in 

ordinary English. They are used in legal English primarily as a way of 

avoiding the repetition of names of things in the document, very often, the 

document itself, for example, "the parties hereto" instead of "the parties to 

this contract". Moreover, -er, -or, and -ee name endings in names and titles, 

such as employer and employee, or lessor and lessee, in which the 

reciprocal and opposite nature of the relationship is indicated by the use of 

alternative endings. This practice is derived from Latin (Van Dijk, 

1981:279). 

2. Use of argot: 

Malinkoff (1963:11-23) argues that the context plays an important 

role in determining the language of the law. For instance, he came to a 

conclusion that the language used in contracts, notices, and jury 

instructions, which is addressed to both lawyers and laymen is not the same 

language used among lawyers or in specialized legal documents, books or 

articles, because in this case, the use of argot or specialized language was 

needed. Amongst these are alleged, due care, purported etc 

3. Frequent use of formal words and phrases: 

Malinkoff (1963) believes that the use of "formal words" is a 

distinctive feature of the language of the law. They are characterized by 



 
18

being dignified, ceremonial, and polite expressions. The preference of 

"shall" over "will" is seen as a formal feature in "Law shall prevail". In 

legal drafting, non-standard terms are never used. Instead, highly formal 

words are usually employed. For instance, the word deem instead of 

consider, the word liable instead of responsible (Sqires & Rombaur 

1982:103). 

4. Deliberate use of words and expressions with flexible meanings: 

Malinkoff (1963) refers to a distinguishing feature in the language of 

the law, which is the choice of terminology; lawyers make use of a good 

number of flexible words and phrases in their legal writings. Amongst 

these are the following: adequate, approximately, clean and neat condition, 

promptly etc. 

5. Terms of art  

Legal English employs a great deal of terminology that has a 

technical meaning and is not generally familiar to the layman e.g. waiver, 

restraint of trade, restrictive covenant, promissory estoppel, contributory 

negligence, judicial notice, injunction, prayer  etc (Van Dijk, 1981:279). 

6. Phrases expressing extreme precision: 

These can be categorized as follows: 

(i) absolute, such as: all, none, never; 

(ii) restrictions, such as: and, no more and no other purpose;  

(iii) unlimiting phrases, such as: including but limited to, shall not be 

deemed to limit etc (Malinkoff 1963:11-23).  



 
19

7. Everyday English words that when used in law have different 

meanings from the everyday usage. For example, the familiar term 

consideration refers, in legal English, to contracts, and means, an act, 

forbearance or promise by one party to a contract that constitutes the price 

for which the promise of the other party is bought (Oxford Dictionary of 

Law). Other words often used in peculiar contexts in legal English include 

construction, prefer redemption, furnish, hold, and find. (Malinkoff 

1963:11-23). An example due to Van Dijk about the use of common terms 

with uncommon meaning is the term Assignment which is used in legal 

contexts to refer to the transference of right not to its more familiar sense 

"task .  

8. Use of doublets and triplets. There is a curious historical tendency in 

legal English to string together two or three words to convey what is 

usually a single legal concept. Examples of this include "will and 

bequeath , "cease and detest , "null and void", "fit and proper", "perform 

and discharge". Such constructions must be treated with caution, since 

sometimes the words used mean, for practical purposes, exactly the same 

thing, and sometimes they do not quite do so (Van Dijk 1981:285). 

9. Unusual prepositional phrases: Van Dijk (1981:285) reports a high 

frequency of "as to" in American legal English, and finds intensive 

occurrence of in event of" instead of "if" and "any". 

10. Lack of punctuation: One of the most unusual aspects of old legal 

drafting is the almost complete lack of punctuation. This was due to a 

widespread belief among lawyers and judges that punctuation was 

unimportant, potentially confusing, and that the meaning of legal 



 
20

documents should be gathered solely from the words used and the context 

in which they were used (Van Dijk, 1981:279). 

11. Use of unfamiliar pronouns. For example, the same, the said, the 

aforementioned etc. The use of such pronouns in legal texts is interesting 

since very frequently they do not replace the noun, which is the whole 

purpose of pronouns, but are used to supplement them. Legal drafter would 

rather repeat the same noun over and over again instead of using a pronoun. 

Such tendency is alleged to help with accuracy and precise reference 

(Haigh 2004:5). 

2.2.2 Syntactic Features of English Legal Texts 

At the sentence level, legal English sentences "are, almost without 

exception, complex" (Crystal and Davy 1969:203).   

Legislative texts are known for [...] long and complex sentences, 

typical use of qualifications to express complex contingencies. In 

order to make legislative statements not only simple, clear and 

unambiguous, but all-inclusive also, these qualifications are inserted at 

various points in the syntax of legislative statements. They also tend to 

introduce excessive information load at various points in the syntax of 

such statements, thereby creating barriers to effective understanding of 

such statements. In order to be able to understand and, to some extent, 

translate legislative provisions, whether from one language to another 

or from one audience to another, one is inevitably required to take into 

account these difficulties (Bahtia 1997:208). 

Syntactically, English legal language, according to Van Dijk (1981: 

279-288) and other linguists such as Bahtia (1997), Crystal and Davy 

(1969) and Maley (1994) is characterized by the following features: 



 
21

1. Nominalization:  

It is commonly accepted that the extensive use of nominalization is a 

marked characteristic of legal English (Bhatia 1997; Crystal and Davy 

1969). Nominalization is the use of nouns in preference to verbs as in  

Maley (1994) states that nominalization is most likely to be used in 

procedural sections in passive clauses with agent deleted. 

Crystal and Davy (1969: 205) identify the following distinctive 

features regarding the use of nominals in legal English: 

a. There is a marked preference for postmodification in the nominal 

groups, as in "any installment then remaining unpaid of the rent" 

(postmodifiers are shown in italics). 

b. By contrast, the use of premodification other than determiners is 

refrained. 

c. Many of the nominals (for example, proposal, declaration, and 

termination) are themselves either abstract or not referring to some 

physical object. 

2. Passives: Legal drafters have a tendency to use passive forms rather than 

active forms because "passive permits an indirect and formal tone with 

which lawyers instinctively feel comfortable" (Haigh 2004: 37). However, 

this can lead to lack of clarity. 

3. Wh- deletion: the deletion of wh-form is common in legal English 

     e.g.: herein (which is). 



 
22

4. Conditionals: Crystal and Davy (1969) point out that complex 

conditionals are very common in legal English. 

5. Prepositional phrases: heavy occurrence of prepositional phrases in 

legal English as in to give time for the payment of any purchase

 

(Van 

Dijk 1981: 282). 

6. Sentence length and complexity: the length and complexity of 

sentences in legal register in English is seldom found in other registers. For 

example: 

To sign agreements, conveyances, transfer, declarations, affidavits, 

petitions, statements and another other documents in my name and on my 

behalf that are necessary to affect a sale of the property. (Haigh 2004: 39) 

7. Unique determiners: Crystal and Davy (1969) and Van Dijk (1981) 

report the use of unfamiliar determiners like such and said . 

8. Impersonality: Texts are typically cast in the third person. According to 

(Haigh 2004: 37) it is inappropriate to use he/she in a document to refer to a 

person whose sex is unknown. In such cases, a number of gender-neutral 

pronouns such as anyone, everyone and no one and a number of other 

workarounds can be used. 

9. Negatives: multiple negatives are common in legal English register. 

They are expressed in unless", "except etc (Haigh 2004: 39) 

10. Binominal and multinominal expressions: These are parallel 

structures, i.e. two words belonging to the same form or class. According to 

Mellinkoff (1963), legal draftsmen attempt at precision both "by choice of 



 
23

particular words and phrases, and by devices of composition such as 

numbering, lettering, indexing " (1963: 22). For the first option, he 

outlines a number of ways by which choice of words and phrases is usually 

affected in legal drafting. One of such ways is "the use of multiple 

specifications of legal devices, factual situation, qualifications, 

applications "(Mellinkoff 1963: 23). Emery (1989) describes them as 

collocations of synonyms or near synonyms, such as genus and 

species . 

11. Unusual word order. At times, the word order used in legal documents 

appears distinctly strange. For example, "the provisions for termination 

hereinafter appearing or will at the cost of the borrower forthwith comply 

with the same." There is no single clear reason explaining this 

phenomenon, although the influence of French grammatical structures is 

certainly a contributing factor. 

12. Use of phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs play a large role in legal English, 

and are often used in a quasi-technical sense. For example, "parties enter 

into contracts, put down deposits, serve upon other parties, and write off 

debts", and so on.  

13. The Usage of shall

 

may and may not . Shall is used in 

official documents to show a law, command, promise, etc. For example, 

"All payments shall be made by the end of the month", shall here is 

different from the auxiliary verb which indicates the future tense." May is 

used to refer to the possibility that someone may do something in a certain 

way, or that something may be done in a certain manner. For instance, "The 

Second Party may assign this Agreement to the third party without a prior 



 
24

written consent of the First Party". May not is used to indicate the 

opposite as in "The Second Party may not assign this Agreement to the 

third party without a prior written consent of the First Party." (Sabrah 

2003:49-50) 

2.2.3 Discourse-level Features 

In English legal discourse, the discourse level features substantially 

differ from those of other forms of discourse in English. The formality of 

the style and its strict wording design, long sentences, and intention of 

avoiding ambiguity, make the English legal register a structure of its own, 

i.e. a unique fusion of scientific and literary style. According to Van Dijk 

(1981: 279-288), legal English is characterized by the following features at 

discourse level: 

1. Anaphora- although pronouns are avoided in legal registers, 

repetition of personal subject nouns are used to avoid ambiguity. 

2. Connection; archaic terms referring to specific times, places, 

persons or things such as " herein after" and "aforesaid", work as 

cohesive devices. 

3. Substitution and ellipsis are very rare in occurrence in legal English 

registers, yet there are few examples of both cohesive devices Wh- 

deletion is seen as a feature of ellipsis. 

4. Lexical cohesion- lexical reiteration in English register is 

outstanding. Since pronouns are avoided, lexical items are mostly 

repeated within the sentences or successive sentences. 



 
25

2.3 General Features of Arabic Legal Language 

In comparison to English legal discourse discussed above, Arabic 

legal discourse has its own idiosyncratic features and distinctive structures. 

Legal Arabic texts are similar in many aspects to their English 

counterparts. Nonetheless, because of the linguistic differences between the 

two languages in form, structure, style, meaning, and organization etc, 

the two registers differ considerably. Emery (1989: 10) states that: 

Arabic legal texts exhibit their own features of structure and 

style. They make more use of grammatical cohesion (through 

reference and conjunction) and of finite structures than their 

English counterparts, and less use of passives. In addition, they 

are not characterized by the use of archaic vocabulary and 

morphology. The two languages differ in their patterns of 

nominisation, creation of binominals and in their use of 

highlightening and text markers. 

A closer look at the legal register of the two languages will 

demonstrate that Arabic legal texts make more use of grammatical 

cohesion through reference and conjunction and of infinite sentences than 

their English counterparts do.  Arabic legal texts make less use of passive 

constructions and archaic expressions. Farghal and Shunnaq (1991) report 

that the syntactic choice, i.e. none-finite phrases which are found in English 

are non-existent in Arabic, for Arabic possesses only clauses, i.e. finite 

clauses. 

As regards layout i.e. text structure and organization, the legal 

register (and of course other registers) in English and Arabic differ from 

each other to a large extent. Whereas English relies heavily on 



 
26

paragraphing and organization of sentences in terms of punctuation, 

capitalization and italicization, Arabic rarely does so. Although Arabic has 

many forms: Kufic, Naskh, Diwani, etc., they all tend to follow the same 

way of writing structure and paragraphing in different texts. The fact that 

nearly all Arabic words are written in cursive and so separate letters are not 

used (except in some acronyms and abbreviations), does not allow for 

capitalization (Emery 1989). 

Arabic legal language is generally characterized by the following 

features: 

2.3.1 Lexical Features 

Arabic legal language, like English legal language, has its own 

technical terminology (Emery 1989). The following are most prominent 

lexical features of Arabic legal language: 

1. Doublets: In Arabic, word pairs used as redundancies to serve emphasis 

are common as in: 

This establishment announces and declares   

 

2. Binominals: Emery defines them as collocations of antonyms, 

synonyms or near-synonyms (Emery, 1989: 9). In Arabic legal texts, 

binomials are not necessarily more common than other Arabic registers. 

The motivation for using binominals in Modern Written Arabic is primarily 

stylistic. Emery's examples are 

 

"sooner or later", 

 

"peace and security",  "round trip". 



 
27

3. Descriptive epithets:  such epithets are intended to lay emphasis on and 

further modify the noun. This example is due to Emery (1989: 10)  

The two high contracting parities confirm  

 

2.3.2 Syntactic Features 

Syntactic features of Arabic legal language are the following: 

1. Nominalization: Arabic sentences can be classified into nominal 

sentences (verbless sentences) and verbal sentences (having verbs). Like 

written legal English, intensive use of long complicated nominals is a 

feature of legal Arabic. This example is due to (Emery, 1989: 8) 

. In this example, the nominal group is 

introduced by the relative "" . 

2. Verbal group: Emery (1989:6) argues that the imperfect past verb 

 

is 

equivalent to "shall" in legal English and it may express condition or 

stipulation as in 

 

Those to be recruited in the Jordanian armed forces                          

 

should be Jordanian by birth                                                              

3.Conditionals. Arabic legal texts are usually crammed with conditionals, 

stipulative terms, obligations or rights. The most common conditional 

particle is  i.e. "if" e.g. 



 
28

(should) if any of the two parties terminated the contract: 

 

4. Passives. Although there is a general tendency to minimize passive 

constructions in legal Arabic language, passives in Arabic legal register 

have a special form, where auxiliaries are not used. One of Emery's 

(1989:7) examples is the following:  

 

The employee shall be appointed on a probationary basis for a period 

of six months. 

5. Modality. Modality in Arabic legal register is usually expressed by 

sentence initial lexical verbs as in , 

 

and the preposition 

 

and  for rights and obligations respectively. For example: 

-

 

-

   

(Emery 1989: 10) 

2.3.3 Discourse-Level Features 

1. Cohesion- Arabic legal language displays a larger tendency to serve 

lexical cohesion in the form of repetition of the same lexical item, much 

more than English legal language. The following examples are due to 

Emery (1989: 4-5): 

 



 
29

The (two) parties sign this contract and the (two) parties  

abide by its wordings and in case of differences the (two) 

 parties should consult an arbitration committee. 

2. Coherence. Emery (1989: 5-6) defines coherence as "the connectivity of 

the underlying content of the text" that helps in making the whole text hang 

together. Legal Arabic is often overtly cohesive through prominal 

reference. Further, since written Arabic is generally more explicit than 

English (Emery 1987), less information has to be recovered from the 

context, and more detail is specified through prominal references: 

  

(Place specified) 

Aimed at changing it (that system) 

Cohesion is also achieved through reference within the nominal group or 

verbal group. 

This thorough review of the characteristic features of legal language 

serves to introduce the peculiarities of the legal discourse emphasizing its 

intricate nature, so that new legal drafting styles and more liberated 

translation strategies, introduced later on, are appreciated and justified. 

Some of the features described above would be discussed as problematic 

areas of legal translation addressed diversely by different translators. Such 

areas have often been cautiously approached by legal translators who have 

always strived to emulate the ST by observing a high degree of literariness. 



 
30

Though most of these features are still present in modern legal texts, the 

way they are dealt with in translation is gradually changing to suit the 

demands of clients and text receivers who may ask the translators to do 

away with the binding force of the legal text altogether. In today's world, 

the modern legal translator is exposed to new demands such as, new 

functions and new communication goals that he/she should strive to cater to 

(Sarcevic 2000).    

2.4 The Plain English Movement 

2.4.1 History and Origins 

The Plain Language Movement usually traces its origins to Sir 

Ernest Gowers (1948) Plain Words, and his later influential Complete Plain 

Words, published originally in 1954, and in many revisions and editions 

since. There has been a continuing movement for plain language in Britain, 

spearheaded since 1979 by the Plain English Campaign, which since 1984 

has been working with the National Consumer Council to advocate plain 

English law. The movement also became influential in the USA, reaching 

its height with the personal endorsement of President Jimmy Carter. The 

influential Document Design Center in Washington DC has produced 

through surveys of the evidence concerning the difficulty of individual 

linguistic features of legal English, as well as detailed guidelines on how to 

reduce its complexity (Felker et al, 1981).  

More recently in Britain, the plain language movement has had a 

major success in persuading the government and mainstream English law 

authorities to implement change towards plain language. A number of 



 
31

arcane legal terms have been replaced: for instance, a plaintiff is now a 

claimant, a pleading is now a statement of case. Law Latin has been 

replaced with English 

 
e.g. parte, inter partes, in camera and supoena 

have become with notice, without notice, in private and a summons. Proper 

names such as an Anton Piller order have been replaced with more 

transparent titles such as a search order (Gibbons 2003: 123).  

Since " language is a vehicle by means of which law is transmitted, 

interpreted and executed in all cultures" (Levi 1990: 4), the plain language 

is said to have developed in response to the needs of consumers for 

documents they could understand and the recognition by government and 

business that plain language brings efficiency and economic benefits. 

During the past two decades, research has uncovered obstacles to 

understanding the written word. That research has contributed to a multi-

disciplinary interest in the way in which texts can best be written and 

designed to make them easier to understand. The Campaign organizers goal 

was not merely to replace legal jargon with everyday words, but to reform 

content and layout of legal texts (Levi 1990). In their book, Butt and Castle 

(2006) explain how and why traditional legal language has developed the 

peculiar characteristics that make legal documents inaccessible to the end 

users. Incorporating recent research and case law, the book provides a 

critical examination of case law and the rules of interpretation.  

2.4.2 Plain English Movement Proponents  

Detailed case studies illustrate how obtuse or outdated words, 

phrases and concepts can be rewritten, reworked or removed altogether. 

Particularly useful is the systematic guide to drafting in the modern style, 



 
32

using examples from four types of common legal documents: leases, 

company constitutions, wills and conveyances. Readers gain an 

appreciation of the historical influences on drafting practice and the use of 

legal terminology. They learn about the current moves to reform legal 

language, and receive clear instruction on how to make their writing clearer 

and their legal documents more useful (Butt and Castle 2006). As part of 

their mission, they compel legal drafters and writers of official prose to  

 

decide what the essential information is, and stick to it, 

 

choose a word learnt early in life, 

 

select a clear, legible typeface, 

 

construct sentences simply, with one or two clauses in a sentence, 

and 

 

create a total effect which is pleasing (Butt and Castle 2006 :61) 

Butt and Castle delineate some of the main reasons that influence 

traditional legal drafting. For example: 

 

Familiarity and habit - the security that comes from adopting forms 

and words that have been used before and seen to be effective,  

 

Conservatism in the legal profession, allied to the common law 

tradition of precedent,  

 

The litigious environment of legal practice,  

 

The desire to avoid ambiguity (Butt and Castle 2006 :5). 



 
33

They believe that these factors act as impediments to creative legal 

drafting.  

David Mellinkoff wrote the seminal work on the English legal 

register, The Language of the Law (Mellinkoff, 1963). In this book, he 

traces the history of English legal usage from the earliest days of Celtic 

England through successive invasions by the Anglo-Saxons, the Romans, 

and the French, with the resultant borrowings, impositions, and 

amalgamations. He identifies a number of patterns that characterize the 

style of legal texts: foreign phrases left intact (mainly Latin and French: ex 

post facto, voir dire, etc.), doublets and triplets (cease and desist; in my 

name, place, and stead), alliteration (lewd and lascivious; rest, residue, and 

remainder), archaic usage such as the compound words of Old English 

(hereinbefore, whomsoever) and words that are no longer in current use 

(slay), as well as vague, pompous, and inflated verbiage. Mellinkoff does 

not mince words when he takes lawyers to task for their bad writing:  

The language of the law is often unclear 

 

plain "muddy." This is 

not to say that the language is devoid of meaning. Simply that if there is 

any meaning, it is hard to find. It is puzzling not merely to the untutored 

non-lawyer. Puzzlement extends to bar and bench (Mellinkoff, 1963: 25). 

The following are some of Mellinkoff's sarcastic critiques of lawyers' 

excessiveness:  

In or out of the law, pompous language gives an air of importance 

out of proportion to the substance of what is said. [...] a sampling of some 

law words which have been used long and often, with never a healthy smell 



 
34

of precision about them. They are flabby words; and in addition, many of 

them are treacherous, for unlike such as reasonable [...] and substantial [...] 

they are not obviously vague. [...] As a kind of fetish supposed to endow 

with precision whatever it stuck to, aforesaid has been glued to everything 

[...] (Mellinkoff, 1963: 304-05; italics in original)  

Mellinkoff (1982) argues legal writing is inherently "wordy, unclear, 

pompous, and dull." He thinks that lawyers have earned a reputation of 

obfuscation, for using "dead and deadly words" and "swarming 

imprecision" (Mellinkoff, 1992: vii, viii). 

As a cure, he offers the following seven rules to make legal 

documents more precise and readable (Mellinkoff, 1982: 55-57). 

Rule 1: The language of the Law is more peculiar than precise. Do not 

confuse peculiarity with precision.  

Precision is sometimes peculiarly expressed, but try not to be taken 

in by the peculiar expression of nonsense.  

Rule 2: Do not ignore even the limited possibilities of precision. The 

price of sloppy writing is misunderstanding and creative 

misinterpretation.  

Some day someone will read what you have written, trying to find 

something wrong with it. This is the special burden of legal writing, and the 

special incentive to be as precise as you can.  



 
35

Rule 3: Follow the rules of English composition.  

If it is bad writing by the standards of ordinary English, it is bad 

legal writing. If it is good writing by the standards of ordinary English, it is 

more likely to be good legal writing.  

Rule 4: Usually you have choice of how to say it. Choose clarity.  

Lack of clarity is a common but not necessary feature of legal 

writing. It is not an inevitable by-product of precision. Clarity depends 

more on how you say it than on what you have to say. As you write, keep 

asking who your audience is.  

Rule 5: Write law simply. Do not puff, mangle or hide.  

The only thing about legal writing that is both unique and necessary 

is law. To simplify legal writing, first get the law right. You cannot 

simplify by omitting what the law requires or including what the law 

forbids. The better you know the law the easier to decide what law ought to 

go in, and what is window dressing.  

Rule 6: Before you write, plan.  

In the quiet time before you become excited with your own words-

on-paper, plan. Talk over goals with those who know more law. Mull, jot, 

fret, read, outline. Then write. If you start from a plan, the writing will help 

your thinking and writing. Unplanned, the flow of words becomes a 

distraction.  



 
36

Rule 7: Cut it in half!   

Repeat the operation until you run out of time or material. Do not say 

the same thing twice inadvertently. Rewrite. Rewrite. Rewrite. 

2.4.3 Criticism to Plain English Movement  

A number of studies have questioned approaches of Mellinkoff and 

other plain language proponents. Critics to this movement argue that 

precision is incompatible with plain or clear language. They pose questions 

like, "Should the Main Goal of Statutory Drafting Be Accuracy or Clarity?"         

(Stark 1994: 207). Stark downplays intelligibility by arguing that "If 

[legislative drafters] write a statute that is not rapidly comprehensible but 

fulfills the requester's intent, they have done their job, although they will 

slow down readers, which is a trivial consideration legislative drafters 

will get help in advancing their art from advocates of focusing on accuracy, 

not from advocates of focusing on clarity In addition, major help will 

come not from academics, who not only are likely to be wedded to the 

plain-language school but also have insufficient knowledge of the 

exigencies of drafting, but from professional legislative drafters. It is time 

for drafters to fill the vacuum into which the academics have rushed, to 

take responsibility for developing their own art" (1994:209). Some believe 

that plain English should be mandated. Others urge legal writers to 

voluntarily use plain language. They claim lawyers should use plain 

language and eradicate legalese simply because it makes sense that writing 

be readable and understandable, not because of legislative mandate.  

The next chapter investigates approaches to legal translation along 

with the general aspects of contract drafting.  



 
37

Chapter Three 

Legal Translation 

This chapter reviews the theoretical framework underlying the 

translation of legal texts and the changing role of the legal translator. It also 

introduces the structure of contracts in general.  

3.1 Approaches to Legal Translation 

Although the translation of legal texts is among the oldest and most 

significant and the most immensely produced all over the world, legal 

translation has long been neglected in both legal and translation studies 

(Sarcevic 2000). Being considered one of the many branches of special-

purpose translation, legal translation was often overlooked due to its 

alleged state of subordination. In this age of multilingualism and 

communication revolution, the legal translator plays a major role in the 

process of communication within diverse legal systems. "Translation of 

legal texts leads to legal effects and may even induce peace or prompt a 

war" (Sarcevic 2000: 1). Due to the current freedom of social, political and 

economic interaction between people from all over this global village, the 

demand for legal translation is more pressing  than ever. As an answer to 

the increased emphasis on equal language rights, many international 

judicial bodies have recognized everybody's right to use their own language 

legal issues.  

Traditionally, translation has been considered as an interlingual 

transfer process. As defined by Catford (1965: 1), translation is "an 

operation performed on languages: a process of substituting a text in one 

language for a text in another." Liberated from the constraints of traditional 



 
38

translation straightjacket, the translator is "no longer a passive mediator 

whose main task is to reproduce the source text (Wilss 1988a:3; Honing 

and Kussmaul 1982: 14 cited in Sarcevic 2000: 3). Translation is now 

regarded as a "cross-cultural event" (Snell-Hornby 1988:46) and the 

translator as an active participant in the communication process." The 

translator is a text producer who creates a new text on the basis of the 

communicative factors of reception in each situation" (Sarcevic 2000: 3). 

The translation procedures adopted for legal texts are subordinate to 

the pragmatic conditions they have to meet. However, strict literal 

translation is not necessarily the only rule for this category of texts. In a 

context that is characterized by the absence of legal force of the translated 

version, there may be situations where a free approach can be taken, if the 

aim is only that of making the addressee of the target text aware of the 

function of the original in the source-language culture. In this case, the 

function of TT is completely different from that of the ST. 

Sarcevic (2003) attempts to provide a theoretical basis for legal 

translation within the framework of modern translation theory. She argues 

that: 

Like other areas of translation, the translation of legal texts is (or 

ought to be) receiver-oriented legal texts authenticated in two or 

more languages are interpreted and applied by courts in various 

plurilingual jurisdictions. It is not concerned so much with 

methods of interpretation but rather with the implications of 

decision-making process of translators. Above all, it attempts to 

show how translation strategy is affected by the communicative 

factors of reception in bilingual and multilingual jurisdictions. 

Since the success of an authentic translation depends on its 



 
39

interpretation application in practice, the ultimate aim is to 

encourage interaction between translators and the judiciary (p. 1). 

Sarcevic (2003) regards translation as an act of communication 

between text producer and receiver. She makes a distinction between direct 

receivers of legislation, which include all persons affected by the particular 

instrument, and indirect receivers who are the specialists who have the 

authority to interpret and apply such instrument. Thus, in a plurilingual 

setting, the translator is the third participant in this process of 

communication. Translation of legal documents including contracts is 

authoritative only if they have been approved by the law. All authenticated 

translations are just as binding as the original text. Hence, they are not 

regarded as translations (Sarcevic 2000:20). In order for that to happen, 

they should be equal in meaning, function and intent. 

3.1.1 Legal Translation and Text Typology 

A number of theorists have proposed various text typologies as a 

way of determining the right translation strategy. The first text typologies 

were based on subject matter. In the narrow scope of such typologies, legal 

texts were utterly ignored. After that, a distinction was made between 

literary versus non-literary texts. Thus, a difference was detected between 

the translation of works of art and the translation of worldly texts. Legal 

texts belonged to the second type and so were thought to need neither 

creativity nor hermeneutics in translation. Later, this text typology 

developed into what is currently known as special-purpose texts (Sarcevic 

2000: 5-6). In 1971, Katharina Rei was the first to suggest a translation-

oriented text typology based not on subject matter, but on function. She 



 
40

classified texts into expressive, conative or informative. Hence, a legal text 

would fall under informative texts category. As a result of this newly found 

focus on function, translation theorists started to pay heed to pragmatic 

aspects of texts by being more aware of the function of texts and the role of 

that in the process of communication (Neubert 1985).  

The peculiarity of a legal text stems essentially from its function. 

Hence, putting it on equal footing with other special-purpose texts will 

impede the process of recognizing its primary function. Peter Newmark 

(1982), like Rei , proposed a text typology based on Bühler's model of 

language functions which is based on a division of basic verbal 

communicative situations with three corresponding text types, informative, 

expressive and evocative or operative. However, he classified legal 

documents as expressive texts, therefore putting them side by side with 

imaginative literary texts for which he received a lot of criticism, which 

was only reasonable (Newmark 1988). Sarcevic (2000) argues that legal 

instruments such as contracts are regulatory in nature. She also adds that 

these are now considered as normative texts which "prescribe how the 

members of a given society shall act (command), refrain from acting 

(prohibition), may act (permission) or are explicitly authorized to act 

(authorization)" (Sarcevic 2000: 11). 

3.1.2 Legal Translation and the Concept of Legal Equivalence 

The intricacy of legal discourse and its pragmatic status may explain 

the reason why the traditionally adopted approaches to legal translation 

need to be reconsidered. Thus, a change in perspective occurred with a 

gradual shift towards a more flexible approach. Such an approach is 



 
41

characterized more and more by recipient-orientedness, with new criteria of 

equivalence, specific for legal translation (Sarcevic 2000: 23). Therefore, 

the principle of legal equivalence emerged, which brought into play the 

legal function that a translated text would have to perform in the target 

culture (Beaupre 986: 179; Herbots 1987 cited in Garzone 2003:5). In 

literature on translation, the concept of equivalence has grown to be 

redundant, vague and controversial. Guidelines to achieving it in actual 

practice have been one of the longest debated issues, especially in the 

1970s and early 1980s. 

Basically, the criterion of legal equivalence is analogous to the 

notion of functional equivalence, and, in terms of general translation 

theory, both principles have their counterparts in other general principles 

proposed by renowned theorists such as Nida and Taber s dynamic 

equivalence (Nida and Taber 1969: 22-24), Koller s pragmatic equivalence 

(Koller 1992: 187) and Newark's communicative translation (Newmark 

1982: 38-56).Within this framework, the translation of a legal text will 

strive to realize identity of meaning between original and translation, i.e. 

identity of propositional content as well as identity of legal effects (Sager 

1993: 180). The introduction of the concept of legal equivalence marked a 

turning point in the history of legal translation. However, it still considered 

the source text as the yardstick against which the quality of a translation is 

assessed (Sarcevic 2000: 202). Its emergence has allowed for the end of the 

traditional inclination for preserving the letter of the original and the shift 

to a more dynamic approach. 

Though the concept of legal equivalence might seem to be applicable 

to virtually all types of legal texts, nevertheless, a succinct investigation of 



 
42

a practically diverse sample of translated legal documents will show that 

this is not the case. For some text types and contexts, the principle of legal 

equivalence is inapplicable. A noteworthy example is the case of sworn 

translations which cannot be other than strict literal, being subject in some 

countries to further constraints in terms of graphic organization such as 

suppression of blanks and new paragraphs to prevent any addition of forged 

material after the certification has taken place. It is indisputable that this 

kind of situation does not fall within the scope of legal equivalence 

(Garzone 2003:5). The principle of legal equivalence was originally 

formulated in a bilingual (and bi-juridical) context. Hence, it chiefly 

stresses that translated text has its own autonomous force, i.e. independent 

legal validity, which is essentially pragmatic in nature. The translation 

strategies adopted for a certain text are subsidiary to the pragmatic 

conditions it has to meet (Garzone 2003). 

3.1.3 Pragmatics and Legal Translation 

Pragmatics studies how people comprehend and produce a 

communicative act or speech act in a concrete speech situation which is 

usually a conversation. It distinguishes two intents or meanings in each 

utterance or communicative act of verbal communication. One is the 

informative intent or the sentence meaning, and the other the 

communicative intent or speaker meaning (Leech, 1983). 

Pragmatics is the study of the relationship between the linguistic sign 

and its user, that is to say, the study of how people use language to 

communicate. Pragmatics deals with meaning in context and maybe the 

study of aspects of meaning not covered in semantics. 



 
43

If we take legal language to be the sign and the society as the user of 

that sign, we will be looking at elements like function, context and 

comprehension. Legal texts do not only describe, report and narrate facts, 

information and arguments, but also they can be used to impose 

obligations, regulate relationships and perform legal actions (Austin 1962). 

After the introduction of the speech act theory by John Austin in 1962 and 

the latter elaboration on the theory by John Searle, many theorists have 

explored the applicability of this theory to legal language. Legal language 

was found to display two main speech act types descriptive (informative) 

and prescriptive (vocative) discourse. In dealing with contracts, Trosborg 

(1994: 312 ff.), while acceptably emphasizing that legal speech acts cannot 

be translated literally, classifies them as directive, commissive and 

constitutive. She uses the word constitutive to denote sentences used to 

explain or define expressions and terms in the contract or to supply 

information concerning the application of the statute." She discusses the 

meaning of verb forms in legal speech acts in a translation perspective. 

Moreover, she argues that the modal verb shall, while in legal texts this 

modal may alternatively also have a performative meaning depending on 

the context (Garzone 1996a:68 ff.; 1999), with evident implications for 

translation decisions. These observations on the one hand shed light on the 

markedly sensitive nature of legal texts, which contributes to making their 

translation particularly critical and challenging, and on the other 

emphasizes the significance of pragmatic considerations in settling on the 

right translation strategy to adopt. 

Austin (1962) proposed a series of success conditions for a 

performative utterance to meet or else the speech act will fail. 



 
44

Correspondingly, Nord (1997: 35) describes the adequacy of a translation 

in the following terms: 

This means the translator cannot offer the same amount and kind 

of information as Source-text producer. What the translator does is 

offer another kind of information in another form [ ]. Within the 

framework of Skopostheorie, "adequacy" refers to the qualities of 

the Target text with regard to the translation brief: the translation 

should be "adequate" to the requirements of the brief.   

When deciding on the most efficient translation strategy to be used, 

the context of the translation, its purpose (skopos) and the nature of the text 

and the text receivers can be quite decisive. However, the translation 

commission can contribute significantly to the quality and functionality of 

the translation by providing the translator with information about the 

intended target-text functions, addressees, the prospective time, place and 

motive of production and reception of the text (Nord 1997, 137). 

In translating legal texts, equal intent has priority over equal 

meaning. There are two forms of intent: macro and micro. While the macro 

intent of a text is often identified as its general communicative function, the 

micro intent is the specific purpose of a particular text, i.e., what it is 

attempting to achieve or author intent. Hence, legal translators must strive 

to produce a text that expresses the intended meaning and achieves the 

legal effects intended by the author. In legal domain, this is known as 

legislative intent. In contracts, this is known as the intent or will of the 

contracting parties. In general, author intent in legal texts is often referred 

to as the true or the original intent.  



 
45

Accordingly, the translator's primary task is to produce a text that 

can be interpreted and applied as intended by the legislator. Based on that, 

a sufficient communication process within the mechanisms of the law can 

be said to have taken place when the translated versions of a single text are 

interpreted and applied uniformly as intended by the contracting parties 

(Sarcevic 2000: 73). 

Speech Act Theory  

A speech act is the proposal that people use utterances to perform 

acts. Following the usage of John R. Searle, it is often meant to refer just to 

the same thing as the term illocutionary act, which John L. Austin had 

originally introduced in How to Do Things with Words.  

The basic unit of language, according to Austin, is not the word or 

sentence but the act which a person performs by using words and 

sentences. Austin sets out to identify the variety of acts which can be 

performed by means of language. He started by pointing out that there are 

many utterances that cannot be discussed in terms of truth or falsehood. A 

constative utterance states a fact or reports that something is the case or 

describes what something is. A performative utterance does not describe or 

report or constate and therefore cannot be assessed as true or false. 

Moreover, the very fact of uttering it is part of performing an action 

(Austin 1962). 

According to Austin (1962), utterances have three aspects: 

locutionary, illocutionary and perlocutionary acts.   



 
46

(i) locutionary act: the utterance of a sentence with determinate sense and 

reference. 

(ii) illocutionary act: the making of a statement, offer, promise, etc. in 

uttering a sentence, by virtue of the conventional force associated with it 

(or with its explicit performative paraphrase). 

(iii) perlocutionary act: the bringing about of effects on the audience by 

means of uttering the sentence, such effects being special to the 

circumstances of the utterance (Levinson 1983:236). 

Direct and Indirect Speech Acts 

Searle later introduced a distinction between direct and indirect 

speech acts. This distinction relies on the speaker recognizing the intended 

perlocutionary effect of a particular utterance on a particular occasion. 

Indirect speech acts occur when an illocutionary act is performed 

indirectly, by way of performing another. Searle also tried to specify 

conditions of felicity in relation to speech acts. He distinguishes between 

regulative and constitutive rules. Regulative rules regulate a pre-existing 

activity, an activity whose existence is logically independent of the 

existence of the rules. Constitutive rules constitute and also regulate an 

activity, the existence of which is logically dependent on the rules.  

Searle makes a distinction between primary and secondary 

illocutionary acts. A primary illocutionary act is not literal rather it is what 

the speaker means to communicate. The secondary illocutionary act is the 

literal meaning of the utterance.  By dividing the illocutionary act into two 

sub-parts, Searle is able to explain how we can understand two meanings 



 
47

from the same utterance while at the same time knowing which is the 

correct meaning to respond to. Searle attempts to explain how we are to 

separate the primary illocution from the secondary illocution by means of a 

set of steps that the speaker and hearer must subconsciously complete 

(Searle 1969). 

3.2 Translation Procedures 

For centuries, legal translators have devotedly followed the syntax of 

the source text as closely as possible, mainly out of fear that any changes 

might disturb the thought process. This fear disappears when translators 

understand how they can express the intended underlying relations in a 

legal text. In navigating between the source text and the target text, several 

translation procedures can be used to achieve this goal. Such procedures 

can be seen as problem-solving techniques that help devise and reproduce 

the intended meaning (Asensio 2003). 

 

Cognates  

Cognates strongly facilitate identification, so they are often used for 

the names of laws, courts, institutions or legal concepts that do not exist in 

the target culture (Asensio 2003: 56). 

 

Borrowing 

Borrowings or loan words are necessary when identification is the 

main concern, as in the case of proper nouns, degrees, grades etc. These 

are also necessary when there is no equivalence between concepts in two 

cultures (Hervey and Higgins 1992: 31).  



 
48

 
Calques  

Calques are useful when we lack adequate terms in the target 

language. However, they quite often interfere with understanding when the 

concepts are not equivalent and convenience of further procedures should 

be considered (Asensio 2003: 57). 

 

Simplification 

Simplification of the original can be seen as a special case of 

omission, and may turn out to be quite recommendable. The abuse of 

doublets, triplets, reiteration, multi-particle references, etc. makes 

translation often unpalatable and unreadable, and meaning is already 

present, implicitly or expressly, in the texts (Asensio 2003: 58). 

 

Aggregation of several meanings into one 

Aggregate translation is the use of a simple solution for a complex 

meaning, using as few words as possible in a way that integrates all 

different meanings of the original. It makes understanding of the translation 

much easier. On the other hand, it can suppress the explicitness in the 

original, when the author expressly wishes to state some individual case. 

The resulting contraction of text might also seem suspicious to many 

recipients. It should therefore be used with the utmost discretion. It can be 

used due to lack of equivalence or considerations of style (Asensio  

2003: 57). 

 

Multiplication 

Despite the multiplicity of simplification strategies, the nature of the 

target language may make multiplication very useful (Asensio 2003: 58). 



 
49

 
Functional adaptation 

In the absence of direct equivalence, the translator may use the 

concept that performs approximately the same function in the target 

language. However, this strategy is not always advisable for binding legal 

documents (Downing and Laurence 2002). 

 

Linguistic adaptation 

Sometimes the translator adapts the expression to terms and phrases 

that are natural in the target language. This can be done by the following 

1. Changing grammatical person 

2. Exchanging formulaic elements 

3. Omitting upper-case letters (Downing and Laurence 2002). 

 

Approximate solutions 

When no equivalence exists between languages and systems, 

solutions approaching the meanings of the original may be enough, even 

when this is not the optimal solution (Asensio 2003: 59). 

 

Personification 

This is a solution in cases where the target language does not allow 

legal acts to be personalized as the source language does (Asensio 2003: 

59). 



 
50

 
Ex novo creations 

"Ex novo" neologisms are purely invented words. They are not 

advisable in official translation since they facilitate neither identification 

nor understanding (Asensio 2003: 60). 

 

Paraphrasing 

This method is explaining the SL concept if it is unfamiliar to the 

target reader, when there is no equivalent institution or concept in the target 

culture and when a literal translation will make no sense. Concepts peculiar 

to the Western legal and parliamentary systems are generally translated 

through paraphrasing (Baker 1992, 37-38, Asensio 2003: 61).  

 

Omission 

Omission is quite dangerous as a solution for legal translation but 

might be reasonable in certain cases when the information included in the 

original is no longer relevant. In the case of formulaic expressions, empty 

of meaning and which have no literal translation, omission can become an 

adequate solution (Toury 1995: 82).  

The next section delineates the general provisions of civil contracts, 

since the corpus that will be discussed in the following chapter comprise of 

four types of civil contracts. 

3.3 Contracts  

Contracts are agreements between two or more parties to exchange 

performances in a given situation for a specific purpose. The legal actions 

to be performed or not performed are set forth in the substantive provisions 



 
51

in the form of obligations, permissions, authorizations and prohibitions, all 

of which are enforceable by law (Sarcevic 2000: 133-134). 

In today's world, contracts are the legal documents ordinary people 

are likely to be most familiar with. A contract does not have to be formally 

written down and signed to be legally binding. Oral contracts are valid in 

law though there may be difficulty in proving them if there are no 

witnesses. Given this freedom of form, there are some basics that 

distinguish contracts from other forms of agreement and which must be 

present for a contract to be recognized as such and thus enforceable. In the 

first place, there must be an agreement between two parties, who may be 

individuals or groups, nonprofessionals or juristic experts. This agreement 

is often described as a "meeting of minds" (Alcaraz and Hughes 2002: 

126). Second, there must be valuable consideration given and received by 

each party. In other words, each party promises to give something in 

exchange for the other party's promise to give something else in return. 

Normally, this consideration takes the form of money, goods or services, 

but it may be practically anything so long as it has some identifiable worth. 

Thus, in this mutual offer and acceptance, each of the two parties may be 

viewed as both or "promisor" and "promisee". Third, the parties must 

intend their promises to be acted on and to be legally binding. Insignificant 

or vague actions are not constructible as contracts, nor are promises to 

undertake the impossible. Fourth, the subject matter of the contract must 

not be illegal or "tainted with illegality"; so called "contract killings" are 

not contracts in law. Fifth, the contract must be freely entered into by both 

parties and both should be of equal bargaining power. Any agreement 

brought on by fraud, unreasonable influence or oppressive means may be 



 
52

set aside, as may an unfair bargain or one-sided agreement bargain 

(Alcaraz and Hughes 2002: 126-127). 

According to Alcaraz and Hughes (2002: 127-132), although there 

can be immeasurable disparities, contracts generally have the following 

textual features: 

a) Commencement or premises 

In the prefatory section, there is commonly some descriptive phrase 

identifying the type of undertaking. Parties of the contract are usually 

identified in this section.  

b) Recital or preamble 

In very formal contracts, parties usually recite the reasons that led 

them to construct such contract. Commercial contracts sometimes follow 

this tradition by supplying details of parties' identities, interests and 

relations to one another and the overall purpose of the contract. 

c) The operative provisions 

This section begins with a clause pronouncing the existence of an 

agreement between the parties and giving force to it by using a 

performative verb such as agree, promise, undertake etc. The rest of the 

section is devoted to detailed specification of overall bargain and parties. 

d) Definitions 

If the parties believe that definitions are necessary in order to make 

their intentions clear, they can be invariably contained in the operative 

provisions. 



 
53

e) Consideration 

This section is dedicated to clarifying the nature of the mutual         

exchange of benefits between the two parties. Therefore, it is the legal 

sense of the term consideration as in "in consideration of" which means in 

exchange that is intended here.   

f) Representation and warranties 

This clause asserts any matter of fact necessary to guarantee the good 

faith of each party, such as assurances as to the quality of the goods sold or 

services provided, the right of each party to act in the contract, and the 

legal assumptions on which the contract is entered into. 

g) Applicable law 

It is common, especially in commercial contracts, for the parties to 

state which set of laws is to govern the agreement. It also clarifies which 

courts are competent in case of dispute. 

h) Severability 

This is an optional section in which parties may agree that if any part 

of the contract is deemed inoperative or unlawful, the rest of the agreement 

will remain valid and binding. 

i) Signature 

The signatories' names are printed legibly above or below their 

signatures, and if any of the parties are juristic persons, his/her professional 

capacity is appended. 



 
54

j) Schedules 

These are known as "exhibits", "appendices" or "annexes". They 

contain miscellaneous information of interest to the parties (e.g. shipping 

documents, technical specifications, power of attorney, or other similar 

materials). 

3.4 Sender/Receiver Relations in Contracts 

Contractual communication is unique in that the relative intentions 

of the parties are expressed onto print through the assistance of someone 

who is learned in law. In contracts, the parties are specified in the 

introduction and by their signature; as each part accepts the agreement as 

enforceable by the court. Basically, the parties to the contract are both 

senders and receivers. The parties are senders in that before the contract is 

drawn up by a lawyer, they have agreed on the subject matter of the 

contract, its content and the particular conditions involved. They are 

receivers in that they verify and witness the agreement by their signature, 

and thus approve the contents of the contract (Trosborg 1997).  

Apart from the parties to the contract themselves, there may even be 

another receiver of the contractual message, namely the court. This 

potential receiver may be the third party of the communicative process of 

the legal discourse as realized in contracts. It forms the basic scope for the 

individual contract and its inherent authoritative status imposes restrictions 

on the parties, as the contents of the contract have to be in conformity with 

the legal framework. 



 
55

There seems to be asymmetrical power relations between the 

potential receivers and the parties to the contract as their scope and liberty 

of action is restricted and limited by the mere institutional authority of 

partly the rules of contract law, and partly the courts constructing and 

administrating such rules (Trosborg 1997: 56-57). 

The next chapter scrutinizes the translation of contracts from a 

pragmatic and functional perspective through an empirical data analysis, 

incorporating discussion of the findings simultaneously. It investigates the 

applicability of pragmatics to the translation of contracts through 

comparing and criticizing the output of three professional translators. The 

assessment is carried out by arbitrating their adeptness to maintain the 

intended meaning and the communicative act effectively, guided by the 

context and illocutionary force aimed at.  

Moreover, the chapter also appraises the bearing of functional 

theories on the translation of contracts through the analysis of TT produced 

by student translators and comparing them with the ones produced by a 

professional translator. The TT is accorded new functions in new 

comprehensively different contexts. For this purpose, a legal thriller novel 

and a newspaper advertisement are selected as alternative genres harboring 

new functions and addressed to new receivers.  



 
56

Chapter Four 

Discussion of Findings  

4.1 The Corpus and Methodology 

The corpus upon which this chapter is based consists of nine 

translated versions of three authentic contracts. The three contacts are a 

Real-Estate Contract, a Contract of Lease and an Employment Contract. 

These contracts were commissioned to be translated by three professional 

translators certified by the Palestinian Ministry of Justice asking them to 

translate these texts the way they would usually deal with texts of the same 

type, i.e. legally binding, official documents. These translators were chosen 

based on their long experience with legal translation and the fact that they 

are certified legal translators, which makes them appropriate subjects for 

this empirical study. After that, an analysis of each of the three contracts is 

carried out in order to compare each version's legal validity based on its 

functional and pragmatic efficiency.  

The first part of the chapter compares and critiques the translation 

strategies used by the three translators to deal with problematic areas of 

legal translation. In legal translation, translators usually face more 

difficulties and are often pressured into observing a higher degree of 

precision than when translating other contexts. To understand a legal 

culture of a given country, the translator must focus not only on legal rules, 

concepts and categories, but also on the context of the legal text concerned. 

Lexical items found in any given legal text can be divided into symbolic 

items and functional items. The latter type consists of grammatical words 

or phrases that have no direct reference in reality, but serve to bind and 



 
57

order those that do. The symbolic group, on the other hand, includes all 

terms that refer to things or ideas found in the world of reality, physical or 

mental. This group maybe further subdivided into three categories: purely 

technical terms, semi technical terms and everyday terms (Harris 1997). In 

view of that, the first part of this chapter investigates how each translator 

handled these three types of legal vocabulary. Other problematic areas such 

as synonyms and quasi-synonyms, legal formulas, here- and there- 

compounds have been analyzed. Various sections from all nine versions are 

selected to be compared and assessed as regards success in reproducing the 

intended meaning. The proposition to be examined is that pragmatics has 

potential application to all fields with a stake in how utterances are 

understood. Hence, pragmatics can play a significant role in legal 

translation.  

This part of the chapter also probes the alleged inherent 

standardization of legal translation. That is to say, if legal translation 

should be acquiescently compliant to an endless array of restrictions, then 

all three versions of each contract should be identical. If this did not turn 

out to be the case, and if all three versions turned out to be different in 

wording and style yet equally valid, then standardized legal translation is 

nothing but an artificial assessment procedure. Conversely, this may also 

shed light on various instances of erroneous translations done by those 

"certified" translators. Such examination can have serious implication for 

reconsidering the certification process of legal translators in Palestine. 

The second part of the chapter reviews the viability and the 

applicability of Speech Act theory to legal translation. The language of 



 
58

authentic contracts is analyzed for socio-pragmatic occurrences of 

pragmalinguistic realization of regulative speech acts and their implications 

for comparing the validity and the adequacy of the translation done by the 

three certified translators. In section 4.4, instances of the regulative 

functions, directive, constitutive and commissive, will be discussed and 

compared with the aim of gauging each translator's ability to reproduce the 

same speech acts in the target language.  

The third part of the chapter burrows into Vermeer's functional 

theory Skopos and explores its relevance to the translation of contracts 

through a small pilot study that compares the work of translation students 

with a broad, modern theoretical background and a professional translator 

who is less informed about modern theories of translation. A group of 

graduate students of translation and applied linguistics and a professional 

translator were assigned to translate a "Power of Attorney" legal text from 

English into Arabic. They were all asked to translate the same text in two 

different contexts performing two different functions in the target text. This 

sheds the most revealing light on the interplay between modern translation 

theories and translation practice. 

4.2 Certifi