With the globalization and China’s entry to WTO, it is imperative for us to lay much emphasis on the study of the language of law, especially in its translation。 However, little work has been done in the field concerning the interrelationship of law, legal language and its translation。 To solve a specific translational problem among them, this paper centers on language features and translation strategies of legal English。 This thesis is composed of five major parts。 Chapter one presents the introduction, which shows the need to this study and displays the purpose and the layout of the thesis。 Part two mainly talks about the linguistic characteristic of English legal texts from the perspective of lexicon, syntax, rhetoric and pragmatic。 Part three states the rules for translation of law English texts。 Part four proposes some translation techniques of English legal texts from the aspects of pragmatic, lexicon and syntax。 Chapter five comes to the conclusion of the paper, which summarizes the key points, hoping contribute to a little bit of growth of legal translation and highlights further research to be done。文献综述

2 An analysis of Language Features of Legal English

When it comes to the language features of legal English, this chapter concentrates on some of the primary features of legal language。 First of all, the most obvious way in which legal language differs from other speech and writing is its lexicon features of legal English texts。 This is a universal feature of legal language, including technical terms, ancient words, popular words with specific legal meaning, use fuzzy terms purposely and borrowed words。 It is true that a better understanding of the lexical features of legal English is beneficial for communicative exchange between Chinese and English。 Second, the most striking characteristics of legal language are syntax, including long and complex sentences, passive sentences and declarative sentences。 In addition, the rhetoric of English legal texts consists in repetition, punctuation and euphemisms and contemporary colloquialism。 Last but not least, law depends upon the pragmatics nature of language。 Therefore, three factors are formed for it, respectively, formality, precision and conciseness。

2。1 Lexicon Features of Legal English Texts

(1) Technical Terms – every profession and occupation is typical of its special technical vocabulary, or “terms of art” as warranty deed, criminal proceedings, Procurator Fiscal, grantee, devisee。 Tiersma (1999:108) states “if a word or a phrase is used exclusively by a particular trade or profession, it should be considered a technical term”。 This definition reveals that a technical term is an unshared term used exclusively by a specific trade or profession。 That’s to say, specialists in the legal sphere are actually equipped with a distinct language peculiar to ordinary people and highly characterized by a vocabulary of technical nature。 The introduction to the seventh edition of Black’s Law Dictionary states that it contains about 25000 entries。 A fair number of these words come from foreign jurisdictions, but there is no doubt that the English legal lexicon is vast。

(2) Archaisms – old-fashioned words are no longer currently used in large quantity, however, these words are very vital and essential for the interpretation of law English。 The tradition forms of English for law words are very formal and solemn expressions。 Like archaic Expressions typically, legal documents are abundant in items such as hereinafter, hereof, aforesaid, hereto, whosoever, therein, thereby, etc。 

Many these ancient words are compound adverbs, adding one or several prepositions to adverbs, e。g。 “after, at, by, from, in, of, to, under, upon” to “here, there, where” (Fu Weiliang, 2002)。 For example,

Herewith Herein