We are living in an age driven by globalization wherein no company is restricted to its own country, regardless of its size. With the abandonment of physical presence for operating a business in a particular area, firm owners are able to build their presence in different corners of the world. But this is not possible without translation. You might be doing well in England while using the standard English language, but to build your presence in a country like China, you need to hire a professional Chinese translation agency to localize your brand to do a proper translation.
But even for firms, translation services are not only about marketing campaigns and articles, but it also covers the legal aspect of the business. Legal translation is surely a tough job, even for translators and this is why getting it done through a professional translation agency is your best bet, since these agencies hire only those professionals that are well versed with the technicalities of the law. Along with legal expertise, these translation agencies also provide certified translation services.
What is Legal Translation?
Legal translation is the most challenging field of translation that deals with the translation of legal documents from one language to another while keeping the original message intact. There might be a long list of translation services but legal translation is surely the most challenging type of translation, even for professionals.
Because of its challenging nature, not all translation companies are able to offer this service, and even if they do, not all of them are able to maintain the quality. Even a single mistake in a legal document can change the entire meaning of it and therefore, it is necessary to select an experienced translation agency.
There is a long list of legal documents that are translated through certified translation services and some of them are;
- Licenses
- Litigation documentation
- Arbitration translation
- Court and witness transcripts
- Depositions
- Confidentiality agreements
- Wills and trusts
- Complaints
- Policies
- Legal Statements, and much more
What is Legalese?
When you start searching for legal translation services, you might come across the word legalese. Well, legalese is a kind of language of its own. It requires a legally trained person to understand it in a detailed way and the same applies to legal translators as well. Every translator providing legal translation services must be aware of the law of different countries since word-to-word translation never works in the case of legal documents.
The Importance of Translation in the Legal Field
If the operation of your firm is not limited to your own country, you will need a professional translation company to translate documents from English or any other language to the desired language.
When someone chooses a translation company for legal translation services, they need to choose someone they can depend upon for a reliable outcome. If the translated document will not be 100% accurate, in addition to the loss in monetary terms, you might have to deal with legal consequences as well. An improperly translated document can even affect the basic operations of your business.
It is necessary for the law firm to be sure that the translated legal paper is true to the original copy and no changes have been made during the translation process. And for achieving such a level of accuracy, it is necessary for the translator to be familiar with the business law along with the law of different countries.
Inaccurate translation can even ruin your relationship with your suppliers and distributors in other countries and therefore, it is necessary to choose a translation company for legal translation only after proper analysis and research.
You might need legal translation services to translate documents from the English language when a translated document requires updating. In such a case, it becomes necessary for the translation company to send two versions of the document, a clean version and one with highlighted changes.
The 4 Aspects of Legal Formatting
There are mainly four characteristics of any type of legal translation.
The Nature of Legal Disclosure
A legal document is divided into two categories; descriptive texts and prescriptive texts. In addition to this, there is one more type which is known as hybrid texts and it contains the characteristics of both the main types of legal documents. Many people think the function of the document relies on its inherent nature, but it actually depends on the communicative situation.
A System-Bound Discipline
Law is a mixture of different systems that have grown individually and they are mostly restricted to the linguistic and national boundaries. If a legal paper is related to procedures, institutions, concepts, and personnel matters then all the professional translators must find equivalents for the culture-bound terms. Both the international and European laws are witnessing a huge increase in this aspect and therefore, many are thinking that it will become more standardized.
Fidelity
Fidelity is achieving a proper impact on the target reader that might justify the changes in the original text for showing respect to the stylistic conventions of the target legal culture. This shows that legal translators are not just bilingual typists, but they are text producers as well.
Interpretation and Ambiguity
The language of law relies on the natural language. This results in a lot of ambiguity and this can become the main reason for translators facing challenges while trying to analyze and translate a legal document.
Legal translation is the most challenging type of certified translation services offered in the current era. And if you want to be 100% accurate with your legal translation, then choose a company that specializes in such type of translation services instead of sticking with a generic company.
