A corpus-based study of Chinese and English translation of international economic law: an interdisciplinary study

Abstract

International Economic Law (IEL), a sub-discipline of International Law, is concerned with the regulation of international economic relations and the behaviours of States, international organisations, and firms operating in the international arena. Due to the increase in commercial intercourse, translation of International Economic Law has become an important factor in promoting cross-cultural communication. The translation of IEL is not purely a technical exercise that simply involves the linguistic translations from one language to another but rather a social and cultural act. This research sets out to examine the translation of terminology used in International Economic Law (IEL) – drawing on data from a bespoke self-built Parallel Corpus of International Economic Law (PCIEL) using a corpus-based, systematic micro-level framework – to analyse the subject matter and to discuss the feasibility of translating these legal terms at the word level, and the sentence and discourse level, with a particular focus on the impact of cultural influences. The study presents the findings from the Chinese translator’s perspective regarding International Economic Law from English/Chinese into Chinese/English with a focus on the areas of law, economics, and culture. The contribution made by a corpus-based approach applied to the interdisciplinary subject of IEL is explored. In particular, this establishes a link between linguistic and non-linguistic study in translating legal texts, especially IEL. The corpus data are organized in different semantic fields and the translation analysis covers lexical, sentential and cultural perspectives. This research demonstrates that not only linguistic factors, but, also, cultural factors make clear contributions to the translation of terminology in PCIEL.