Setting the Scene

Abstract

In the first chapter, in addition to defining legal translation, legal texts are classified into several types by different scholars, such as Bhatia (1981), Trosborg (Rhetorical Strategies in Legal Language: Discourse Analysis of Statutes and Contracts. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag Tubingen, 1997), and Cao (Translating Law. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters, 2007). Those classifications are introduced and discussed in detail in this chapter. Further, issues, such as readership, communicative purpose, the process of writing, and the draftsman’s position’ are introduced by touching on the importance of giving what is called ‘translation brief’ full consideration prior to embarking on the actual act of translation. This is followed by a section on intra-system differences between the interfacing languages, i.e. English and Arabic. The chapter closes with a list of the references used therein followed by several questions for discussion and assignments, thus hel** translation students and translators to put the theoretical issues discussed in the chapter into practice.