Article.
Olha Sytenko
УДК 81᾿33.651.926
PROBLEM OF
ADEQUATE TRANSLATION OF CONTRACTS
The article deals with one of the most complex and
complicated professional translation types – business and legal
translation; here contracts are under consideration. It summarizes functional
features of an official style of language, investigates peculiarities of
translation of contracts, their functional, structural, semantic, grammatical
and syntactic aspects.
Keywords: legal documentation, contract, legal terms,
qualitative and competent translation, lexical perception, foreign text
conventions.
Nowadays the
translation of business papers is becoming an integral part of the modern
business world due to the expansion and integration of international relations,
development of international business partnership. As a result of it, business
people in our country need specialists can handle with the English language as
a language of international cooperation used for written documents. To succeed
in the world business market businessmen and international companies especially
often face the problem of translating the most required business documentation
like contracts (agreements), treaties,
correspondence (letters), enquiries,
offers, claims (complaints), telexes, etc., which have become of great legal
importance for the last decade. The peculiarities of the official style,
organizing and writing business documents are researched in comprehensive
monographs by I.R. Galperin [Galperin1982] and other well-known specialists:
I.V. Arnold [Aрнольд 1991], V.A. Kukharenko [Kukharenko 1986],
E.E. Izrailevich [Израилевич 1964], and others. Most linguists rely on the
analysis conducted by I.R. Galperin, which is considered the most detailed
and profound.
Legal
translation is one of the most complex and complicated professional translation types.
A translation service is responsible for understanding both politico-legal and
socio-cultural contexts behind a legal text and translating it in such a way that
a target audience with a different cultural / political / societal
background could readily understand [Комиссаров 2000]. Only a highly-qualified
translator who knows both source and target cultures could pull a decent legal
translation job off. Nevertheless, even specialists like those tend to use
professional legal assistance as well, because singular simple mistake or
mistranslation of a contract’s passage can lead to disastrous consequences.
"In legal English", writes H. Whitehall, – «...a significant
judgement may depend on the exact relations between words. ...The language of
the law is written not so much to be understood as not to be
misunderstood" [Whitehall1956].
The purpose of the present analysis is to
establish the main peculiarities of the language of business documents, i. e. contracts and the ways of their rendering
from source language into English.
The current purpose raises the
following tasks: 1) determination of
characteristic features of functional business style; 2) investigation of
peculiarities of contracts as the type of business legal documentation; 3)
analysis of lexical, grammatical and
syntactical distinguishing marks of contracts; 4) establishment of
methods, techniques of qualitative, adequate and competent translation.
The
novelty of the investigation is defined with synthesis of theoretical and
applied studies of the language of official business documents, i. e.
contracts, the ways of providing qualitative, adequate and competent
translation.
The practical significance of the research is to
underline the main aspects of writing business correspondence for those who are
concerned about drawing up the official documents. It also can be informative
for those who study problems of functional usage of formal and informal styles
in English. The results of this work can be taken into consideration by those
who are involved in studying English and English stylistics. It can be used for
special courses of business English for students of Linguistics, Business and
Economics as well.
The official business language differs from other
styles of any language, mostly because of the specific character of its
functional usage that can be illustrated in classical terms of style, its
predestination and main features. The style of official documents is the most
conservative one. It preserves the structural forms and the use of syntactical
constructions. Archaic words are not observed anywhere else but here.
Addressing documents and official letters, signing them, expressing the reasons
and considerations leading to the subject of any document are regulated both
lexically and syntactically. Any emotiveness and subjective modality are
completely excluded out of this style. It is represented by the following
sub-styles or variants: the language of business documents, legal documents,
diplomacy and military documents. Like other styles of language, this style has
a definite communicative aim and, thereafter, has its own system of
interrelated language and stylistic means. The main aim of this type of communication
is to state the conditions and proper way of understanding binding of two
parties in an undertaking and to reach agreement between two contracting
parties. The subdivision of this style has its own peculiar terms, phrases and
expressions, which differ from the terms of correspondence, phrases and
expressions of other variants of this style. Peculiar features common for all
stylistic varieties of official documents are the following:
·
exactness – all statements mentioned in the original must be translated
exactly and accurately in a target document;
·
conciseness – all statements mentioned in the original must be presented
concisely and laconically;
·
clarity – conciseness and succinctness must not prevent from clear
understanding of the context content;
· literary style –a target text
must meet all the rules and norms of the generally accepted standards of
literary language avoiding the use of syntactical constructions of source
language [Ожегов1993].
Due to these
postulates of legal translation the probability of free translation /
interpretation of the essence of the subject under the discussion is almost
impossible. As a result of it, one scarcely finds in business style texts the
stylistic devices like metonymy, metaphor, hyperbole and other stylistic
figures and emotional components which are widely used in a literary style and are regarded as vivid
signs of texts belonging to this genre [Костомаров1971].
One
of the most common and most complex types of translation is the translation of
contracts. Contract is a formal writing which contains the agreement of parties
with the terms and conditions and serves as a proof of the obligation [Dictionary
of Contemporary English 2009]. The particularity of this type of translation is
that one must take into account not only legal terminology, but also the
compliance of the translated text with the judicial system of the country in
which the contract was written. To achieve this, the translator must have an
adequate experience in the translation of legal terminology, as well as
knowledge of the legislative system of the country in which the contract was
written. When translating a contract, the translator faces not only linguistic
challenges, but also the particularities of the judicial systems of both
countries. The translation of contracts, especially those that are full of
technical expressions, often requires broader knowledge on the part of the translator,
and sometimes the contract cannot be translated by one translator alone. For
larger texts, multiple translators are required who assign each one a portion
that is closest to his / her specialization.
Any skilled
professional translator should be able to deliver fast and high quality
translation of the following contract types: sales and purchase agreements;
supply contracts; power supply contracts; real-estate property contracts; real
property contracts; service agreements; rental and lease agreements, patent and
know-how license agreements; deeds of gift; articles of association and others.
Contract (lat. сontractus) is known to be a business document presenting an
agreement approved and signed by two or more parts [Чудинов1910].Legal contracts are made in writing. When
striking a deal, standard contracts are widely used. Standard contracts are not
a must. Some articles can be altered and supplemented. There exists a proper
set of items which are of the greatest importance in any contract: number of a
contract; place and date of signing; names of the Sides signing the contract;
subject of the contract; quality of goods; price; destination; delivery time;
requirements for packing and marking; payment terms; conditions of submission
and acceptance of goods; transport conditions; warranty conditions and
sanctions; arbitration conditions; force majeure; judicial addresses of the
Sides; signatures of the Seller and the Buyer. All appendices form an integral part of the contract.
The language of contracts is agreed upon by both sides. It goes without
saying that information and style are kept the same not depending on the
language of textual varieties of contracts. Contracts are divided into
administrative-managerial, financial-economical, advertising,
scientific-technical, and artistic-publication contracts. Functional spheres of
their circulation can be easily guessed from names of contract types in this
classification, and are the subject of economic, rather than linguistic study.
In the linguistic point of view contract is a type of document due to
any agreement and a completed document fixing some information. As a type of
text, contract has its own specific characteristics. The stylistic
peculiarities of all document texts are:
·
concreteness, conciseness,
clearness of the stated idea;
·
high capacity of information;
·
strict logic;
·
clear rhythm of sentences;
·
accenting on the main idea with
the help of word repetitions;
·
absence of emotiveness;
·
absence of connotational
information;
·
a special system of clichés and
stamps;
·
usage of abbreviations,
conventional symbols and marks;
·
usage of terms in their direct
semantic logical dictionary meaning;
·
preferential usage of
monosemantic words;
·
division of a text into
chapters, paragraphs, points, often numbered (clear compositional structure of
a document);
·
usage of definite syntactical models;
·
graphic decoration of a document: quality of paper, quantity and quality
of illustrations, size and kind of print.
The main features of the style of contract as a type of business
official document are:
·
steady system of linguistic
means in the text of contract;
·
lack of emotional colouring;
·
decoding character of language;
·
usage of a special conventional
symbolic system;
·
abbreviations;
·
contractions;
·
definite syntactical structure.
It also should be noted that the syntactical construction of this style is as
important as the vocabulary [Швейцер1973].
In the lexicological point of view business papers are of great
interest. Their lexicon is rather stable. As a rule, words have their exact
meaning. There are no words which are emotionally coloured. As a result of it,
we can point out the words, which are present practically in every contract.
For example, the adverbs here / there
and their compounds: hereby / thereby,
herewith / therewith, hereto / thereto, etc.: Continental Equipment Plc, Brighton, England, hereinafter
referred to as «the Seller», on the one part...; If shipment of the
whole or part is thereby
rendered impossible…
"Whereas" is frequently used in order to start a contract. It means that the
sides have been engaged in a series of transactions resulting in a dispute over
accounting between them and its compound word whereby, which means by which
and refers to the present contract, e. g., Whereas, changes in one or more of the above-listed positions have
occurred; On May 12, 2008, BNSF, the
Port and the County entered into a Purchase and Sale agreement whereby the Port
agreed to acquire portions BNSF᾿s property…
An array of the presence of prepositional phrases in
contract texts is another peculiarity. Among them we can distinguish the most
popular such as subject to, solely on condition that, on the understanding, on conditions that, etc.: The prices are firm for the duration of the Contract
and shall not be subject to any revision… I will buy 1000 barrels solely
on condition that Baker delivers them.
In the lexicon of contracts there are a lot of foreign
words, first of all, Latin ones, such as pro
rata, pari passu, extra, inferior / superior
which are very often used when speaking about payments, terms of
delivery, the quality of goods, e. g. Fractions to be considered pari passu; The
quality of Model S-20 is inferior to that of Model S-40. Such Latin words as ultima, proxima are now archaic and
rarely used, e. g., If the excess is
discovered only on arrival of the goods at their ultima destination in the
U.K….
Few but rather regularly used words are of French
origin. The most wide-spread among them is force
majeure which is a
significant point practically in every contract and serves for defining
unpredictable or urgent situations, e. g., The parties are relieved of
responsibility for partial or complete non fulfillment of their obligations
under the present contract due to force-majeure circumstances…
So, when translating
contracts it is necessary to take into account the particularity of the
vocabulary of contracts, a definite set of words and word-combinations which
constitute lexical peculiarities of contract texts. They are
all rather bookish and belong to formal style of written English, not being
used in informal English and rarely used in spoken formal English.
Grammar of any contract may be generally characterized
as rather formal and simple. The lack of diversity of grammatical forms and
poor and reduced usage of tense forms, dominating role of model verbs and
non-finite forms are typical traits of any contract.
The most wide-spread tense forms used in the texts of
contracts are Simple and Perfect Tenses of both Active and Passive Voices,
e. g., Our firm informed the Suppliers that the
general conditions were not contained in the order; After the
contract has been signed … The specific character of any
contract provides a rare usage of past tenses, analytical forms of the verb,
such as Continuous and Perfect Continuous Tenses, are absolutely banned out.
Prevailing usage of modal verbs and modal words /
word-combinations is another specific feature of contracts. This peculiarity
can be explained by the fact that these words constitute the field of modality,
extralingual reality required to establish new business contacts and
partnership. Thus the verb shall
though not used in Modern English, in business correspondence and documents
keeps being greatly used, e. g., The
Seller upon written consent of the Buyer shall be permitted to substitute
equipment of comparable quality. The verb be
to proves the necessity to fulfill the duties according to the contract,
e. g., The Seller is to take care of
and cover expenses for insurance of the equipment under the Contract… The combination of the verb should and the
infinitive shows a future action, but with a less degree of probability. This
construction usually occurs in subordinate clauses, e. g., …
if a delay in the delivery should
exceed 3 months.
One of the most striking features of Business English
is a wide use of verbals. They are subdivided into three forms: infinitives, -ing-forms and participles. The most
frequent non-finite form used in contracts is infinitive and its predicative
constructions. It may be used as an adjunct to verbs, nouns and adjectives [Арнольд1991],
e. g., The Parties have failed to
deliver the equipment; The goods are
considered to be in conformity with the certificate.
The two parties of a
contract defined as "Buyers and "Sellers" can be
used both with the definite article and without it but in any case should be
written in capital letters.
Perhaps the most noticeable
of all syntactical features are the compositional pattern. In the realm of the
syntactical structure of contract two tendencies can be observed: a) numerous
paragraph divisions which facilitate more exact and clear understanding of the
essence of the subject of contract; b) complicated syntax when in the measures
of one sentence the most significant information is rendered.
Contracting parties should not
experience any difficulties in obtaining and understanding information.
Misunderstanding may be caused by a lack of thought and care. It may happen in
case of numerous use of abbreviations, figures, prepositions. They are very
useful, because they are very quick to write and easy to read. But both parties
are expected to know what the abbreviations stand for. The most common
abbreviations are Gvt (government), C&F (Cost and Freight), C&I (Cost and Insurance).
Conjunction But is marked as # in contract texts. The symbol № is used instead of the word number.
Latin abbreviations are often used in contracts, for example: e. g. (for example), et al. (and others), etc. (and so on), v. v. (quite the opposite), i. e. (that means); English abbreviations ltd. (limited), Bros,
(brothers), encl. (enclosed), dols. (dollars), etc.
It is preferable to write sums in both figures and words to avoid any
probability of misunderstanding and confusion. A special attention should be
also paid to titles, names, addresses, references, prices, specifications,
enclosures, etc., which are also of a great importance in texts of contracts.
While translating the text a translator first of all
must distinguish neutral, bookish and colloquial words and word combinations,
translating them by relevant units of the target language. It is sometimes hard
to determine the correct stylistic variety of a translation equivalent, final
decision is taken on the basis of context, situation and background
information. The language of documents is rather strict and standardized. The
main peculiarities can be brought to the following: concreteness, conciseness,
clearness of the idea, high capacity of information, strict logic, clear rhythm
of sentences, word repetitions which accent the main idea, no connotations,
clichés and stamps, usage of monosemantic words and words in their direct
logical meaning, division of text into chapters, paragraphs, points, presence
of the definite syntactic structure.
There
is no need to mention that any qualified translator performing translation of contracts uses special
dictionaries, encyclopedias and various data books. However, it is clear that
it is not enough knowledge of only book data: in communication and information
sharing all sources are important. The professional should be informed on all
circumstances of the situation, deeply understand an event essence that will
help him / her perform qualitative, adequate and competent translation.
Translation of contracts often means also
legalization process. Usually the situation assumes that all papers at first
will be translated, and then will be legalized together with the copies in
other language.
Performing
aforementioned translation, the expert faces a number of serious problems. The
translation from one language into another frequently becomes complicated for
law terms and concepts which are present in the original and are impossible to
translate into a target language. Many law texts contain such formulations
which simply are not characteristic of legal system of another country. In this
connection, translation of contracts can present rather serious difficulty. In
this case the expert-translator performing translation of contracts is aware of
the necessity of conveying the right meaning of the concept whose exact
translation does not exist of. Besides he should constantly keep in his mind
the peculiarities of lexical perception of foreign notions, conventions and
concepts which also cannot correspond to foreign conventions. The professional
translator should try to perform the most exact translation, after all not only
the material income of the customer-company is set on stake, but also its
authority and prestige in the market.
So, in conclusion it’s
necessary to emphasize the fact that the theory of functional stylistics
including studies of the peculiarities of the translation of business
documentation is generally replenished with new methods, techniques and
research methods. The study and analysis of language features of business
documentation proves the necessity of acute current investigation of this
aspect in the modern world. The problem of the adequate translation of business
documentation, its theoretical understanding and practical realization requires
the coverage of different aspects of functional stylistics and establishing its
differential traits with its active and passive discover which determine the
future research.
References.
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У статті розглянуто один з найскладніших типів професійного перекладу –
бізнесової документації, особлива увага приділена фаховому перекладу
контрактової документації. У статті виявлено та ґрунтовно проаналізовано
стильові, функційні, граматичні, лексико-семантичні та синтаксичні особливості
текстів контрактів.
Ключові слова: бізнесова документація, юридична
термінологія, квалітативний та компетентний переклад, лексичне сприйняття,
конвенції іноземних текстів.
Available 26 September 2013.
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