Conceptual Terminological Variation in the Translation of Normative Texts from Chinese to Spanish across Different Domains and Macro-textual Parameters
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.18002/sin.v19i2.8604Keywords:
legal translation, terminology, functional equivalent, terminological variation, polysemy.Abstract
This study focuses on the problems presented by conceptual terminological variation in legal translation from Chinese into Spanish, in order to observe the decision-making process at the micro-textual level. Legal language is anchored in general language, where polysemy is “a norm in language”, its existence contributing to legal language being considered ambiguous, obscure and vague. Moreover, the same concept in the source language may have different meanings and uses in the target language, depending on its context and legal domain. Thus, as a point of departure, we have translated various laws of the People’s Republic of China belonging to different domains. These translations constitute the textual corpus in which we detect and analyse problematic terms due to their ambiguity or vagueness through various situational factors and macro-textual parameters for decision-making at the micro-textual level. The work is based on the framework of the communicative theory of terminology, so that it analyses the terms in vivo and the terminological variations in context.
Downloads
Métricas alternativas
References
Alcaraz Varó, E., 2004. Anisomorfismo y lexicografía técnica. En Luís González y Pollux Hernúñez (Eds.), Las palabras del traductor: actas del II Congreso “El Español, Lengua de Traducción”, 201-219. Esletra.
Boletín Oficial del Estado web oficial en línea https://www.boe.es.
Borja Albi, A., 2005. ¿Es posible traducir realidades jurídicas? Restricciones y prioridades en la traducción de documentos de sucesiones británicos al español”. En E. Monzó Nebot y A. Borja Albi (Eds.), La traducción y la interpretación en las relaciones jurídicas internacionales. Castelló de la Plana, Publicacions de la Universitat Jaume I.
Bréal, M. J. A., 1927. Essai de sémantique (science des significations). París, Hachette.
Cabré Castellví, M.T.,1999. La Terminología: representación y comunicación: elementos para una teoría de base comunicativa y otros artículos. Barcelona, Institut Universitari de Lingüística Aplicada.
Cabré Castellví, M.T., 2002. Terminología y lingüística: la teoría de las puertas. En Estudios de Lingüística Española, 16. http://elies.rediris.es/elies16/Cabré.html.
Cabré Castellví, M.T., 2004. La terminología en la traducción especializada. En Consuelo Gonzalo García y Valentín García Yebra (Eds.), Manual de documentación y terminología para la traducción especializada, 89-122. Madrid: Arco/Libros.
Cabré Castellví, M.T., 2008. El principio de poliedricidad: la articulación de lo discursivo, lo cognitivo y lo lingüístico en Terminología (I). En Ibérica, Revista de la Asociación Europea de Lenguas para Fines Específicos, 16: 9-36.
Cabré Castellví, M.T., Estopá Bagot, R. & Domènech Bagaria, O. 2018. La terminologia avui. termes, textos i aplicacions. Ed. UOC SL.
Cao, D., 2004. Chinese Law: a Language Perspective. London: Routledge.
Cao, D., 2006. Interpretation, Law and Construction of Meaning. Netherland: Springer.
Cao, D., 2008. Is the Chinese legal language more ambiguous and vaguer? En Anne Wagner y Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahi (Eds.), Obscurity and Clarity in the Law: Prospects and Challenges, 109-125. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Cardero García, A. M., 2003. Terminología y Procesamiento. UNAM, México.
Cheng, L. et al., 2014. Revisiting legal terms: A semiotic perspective. Semiótica, 202:167-182. De Gruyter.
Cheng, Le & Sin King Kui, 2008. Terminological equivalence in legal translation: a semiotic approach. Semiotica 172-1 / 4: 33-45. De Gruyter.
China National Committee for Terminology in Science and Technology 全国科学技术名词审定委员会, 2021. 民法典术语 Terms in Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China. Beijing: People's Publishing House.
Cornu, G.,1990. Linguistique juridique. París: Montchrétien.
Deng Xiaoping 邓小平, 1983. 邓小平文, 第二卷 (Selected Works of Deng Xiaoping, Vol.II). Beijing: People’s Press.
Diccionario Chino Moderno 现代汉语词典, 2016. Beijing: The Commercial Press.
Diccionario de Derecho Administrativo y Derecho Procesal Contencioso-Administrativo 行政法与行政诉讼法辞典, 1992. Beijing: China University of Political Science and Law Press.
Diccionario Jurídico法律辞典, 2009. Shanghai Cishu Press.
Diccionario Moderno Español-Chino; Chino-Español, 2001. Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Researching Press, 10ª ediciónj.
Firth J.R.,1957. Applications of General Linguistics. En Transactions of the Philological Society PhilSoc Vol.56, 1:1-14.
Gémar, J. C., 1995. Traduire, ou, l’art d’interpréter. Babel, 43 (2): 185-187.
Gobierno de la República Popular China web oficial en línea http://www.npc.gov.cn/.
Gobierno de la República Popular China web oficial en línea http://www.court.gov.cn/
Guastini, R., 2015. A Realistic View on Law and Legal Cognition. En Revus - Journal for Constitutional Theory and Philosophy of Law, 27: 45–54.
Hart, H. L. A., 1953. The Concept of Law. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Halliday, M.A.K.,1966. Lexis as a Linguistic Level. En C.E. Bazell, J.C. Catdford, M.A.K. Halliday & R.H. Robinson (Eds.) In Memory of J.R. Firth, 148-162. London: Longman.
Holl, I., 2012. “Técnicas para la traducción jurídica: revisión de diferentes propuestas, últimas tendencias” En Hermeneus. Revista de Traducción e Interpretación (2012)14: 192-209.
Hurtado Albir, A., 2001. Traducción y traductología. (2ª ed.). Madrid: Cátedra.
Langacker, R.W., 1988. A usage-based model. En Brygida Rudzka-Ostyn (Ed.), Topics in cognitive linguistics, 127−161. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Jiang, M. 姜明安, 2017. Administrative Law 行政法. Peking: Peking University Press.
Jiang, Z., 1996. Emphasizing on Governing the Country according to Law 坚持依法治国. Hong Kong Daily News新报香港.
Leng, B., 2021. Translator-oriented terminology management. En Saihong Li y William Hope (Eds.) Terminology Translation in Chinese Contexts: Theory and Practice, 129-143. Routledge.
Leung, J.H.C., 2014. Translation equivalence as legal fiction. En Le Cheng, King Kui Sin y Anne Wagner (Eds.) The Ashgate Handbook of Legal translation, 57-70. Ashgate.
Mattila, H. E. S., 2006. Comparative Legal Linguistics. Hampshire: Ashgate.
Mattila, H. E. S., 2012. Comparative Legal Linguistics: Language of Law, Latin and Modern Lingua Francas. Hampshire: Ashgate.
Norma ISO 704, 2000. Terminology work – principles and methods. En www.iso.org/ standard/31696.html.
Nuevo Diccionario Chino-Español 新汉西词典, 2000. Beijing: The Commercial Press. 2ª edición.
Nuevo Diccionario Jurídico de Uso Frecuente 新编常用法律词典, 2013. Beijing: China Legal Publishing House.
Pearson, J., 1998. Terms in context. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing.
Poon, W. Y. E., 2010. Strategies for Creating a Bilingual Legal Dictionary. En International Journal of Lexicography 23(1): 83-103.
Prieto Ramos, F., 2013. ¿Qué estrategia para qué traducción jurídica? Por una metodología integral para la práctica profesional. En Iciar Alonso Araguás, Jesús Baigorri Jalón y Helen J. L. Campbell (Eds.) Translating the Law. Theoretical and Methodological Issues, 87-105.
Real Academia Española, 2005. Diccionario de la lengua española. Madrid, Real Academia Española. Versión en línea http://www.rae.es
Real Academia Española, 2005. Diccionario panhispánico del español jurídico. Madrid, Real Academia Española. Versión en línea http://www.dpej.rae.es.
Ross, A., 1958. Definition in Legal Language. Logique et analyse 25 (1): 3-4. Louvain.
Ross, C. & Ross, L., 2000. Language and law: sources of systemic vagueness and ambiguous authority in Chinese statutory language. En Karen Turner, James V. Feinerman y R. Kent Guy (Eds.) The Limits of the Law in China, 221-270. University of Washington Press, Asian Law Series, School of Law.
Šarčević, S., 1985. Translation of culture-bound terms in laws. En De Gruyter, en línea: https://doi.org/10.1515/mult.1985.4.3.127.
Šarčević, S., 1997. New Approach to Legal Translation. Ed. Netherlands: Kluwer Law International.
Sourioux J. L. & Lerat, P.,1975. Le langue du droit. Presses Universitaires de France.
Xi, J., 2017. Xi Jinping’s report at 19th CPC National Congress. Xinhuanet 3 noviembre 2017. En http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/especial/2017-11/03c_136725942.htm.
Zhao, Y. 赵艳芳, 2000. An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics 认知语言学概论. Shanghai: Shanghai Foreign Language Education Press.
Zhao, Y. 赵元任, 1968. A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Published
Versions
- 2026-01-22 (3)
- 2025-01-17 (2)
- 2025-01-17 (1)
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Sinología Hispánica. China Studies Review considers all manuscripts on the strict condition that:
- The authors assign the exploitation rights (reproduction, distribution, public communication and transformation) of the work accepted for publication to the University of León on a non-exclusive basis. Authors can establish, on their own, additional agreements for the non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (for example, placing it in an institutional repository or publishing it in a book), always acknowledging the initial publication. in this magazine.
- The manuscript is your own original work and does not duplicate any other previously published work, including your own previously published work.
- The manuscript is not currently under consideration or peer review, nor accepted for publication, nor in press, nor published elsewhere.
- The manuscript contains nothing that is abusive, defamatory, libellous, obscene, fraudulent, or illegal.
- Please note that Sinologia Hispanica uses Turnitin software to screen manuscripts for unoriginal material. By submitting your manuscript to Sinologia Hispanica you are agreeing to any necessary originality checks your manuscript may have to undergo during the peer-review and production processes. Any author who fails to adhere to the above conditions will be rejected.
- Authors are allowed and encouraged to electronically disseminate the pre-printed versions (version before being evaluated) and / or post-printing (version evaluated and accepted for publication) of their works before publication, since it favors their circulation and dissemination more early and with it, a possible increase in its citation and reach among the academic community.
Sinologia Hispanica is under an international license Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0. You can read more about this license in an informative version and legal text.
