Specific Issues and Challenges in Translating EU Law Texts

Abstract

In the contemporary world of globalization and international collaboration in all spheres of human life, the English language has become a lingua franca of international communication. Along with French and German, English is one of three working languages of the EU Commission and the most commonly used language among lawyers and judges of the EU courts in their everyday professional communication. Based on one of the essential principles of the Union - the principle of equality of member states and the languages spoken in them - all legal documents of the EU are drafted in the three working languages and translated into the languages of other Member States simultaneously. As the European legal system is usually qualified as a “hybrid” system comprising the elements of both the common law system and the civil law system, new legal concepts and terms have been introduced, which may cause problems in translation. In this paper, the author explores the features of legal English with specific reference to the language of the EU law by addressing the problems and challenges that translators face with when dealing with legal texts. In the introductory part of the paper, the author offers an overview of existing theoretical approaches to legal translation. The emphasis is placed on the functionalist approach which observes translation from a socio-cultural perspective and determines the function of the text in the target language, the target culture, and the recipient of the translation as essential factors of specialized translation. In the main part of the paper, linguistic features of the language of law are analysed and discussed from the point of view of translation problems and challenges. The comparative approach is used in analysing legal terms and phrases with specific reference to linguistic and cultural differences in the English and German languages of law and their corresponding functional equivalents in the Croatian language. The author also addresses the problem of newly coined words or wrongly used words of the English language that have become a part of the EU law terminology and may lead to misunderstandings and wrong translations.