Foundations of Legal Translation and Methodology of Legal English translation
- Overview
- Assessment methods
- Learning objectives
- Contents
- Bibliography
- Delivery method
- Teaching methods
- Contacts/Info
The historical evolution of legal languages is the subject of a specific course of the three-year degree in Interlinguistic and Intercultural Mediation ("Comparative Legal Terminology"). Where the need arises, based on the composition of the student population, the basic notions of this course will be opportunely and briefly taken up again during the lessons.
The methods for verifying learning consist of a written test, with the attribution of the final grade in thirtieths, concerning the entire program of the course.
The verification of learning will be carried out in written form, preparing theoretical questions for the theoretical module and a brief translation of a legal text from English for the practical module.
For the evaluation of learning, the final grade is expressed out of thirty and takes into account the accuracy and quality of the answers (50%), the capacity for critical evaluation and argumentation (30%), as well as the ownership of language (20% ).
The course aims to provide first of all the cultural and methodological tools to deal with the translation of legal texts in general.
The course also aims to introduce students to the concrete translation problems relating to contracts and some aspects of public law.
At the end of the course students are expected to have learned the theoretical tools of legal translation and the first foundations of the practice.
The course is divided into a theoretical part and a practical part.
Theoretical part
The theoretical part is aimed at illustrating
• the peculiarities of legal language,
• the theories of legal translation in relation to the type of texts,
• problems related to translation in the European multilingual context
• the peculiarities of the common law legal lexicon and English as a vehicular language,
• the legal concepts of the contractual discipline in a comparative key
• the legal concepts of public law in a comparative key
Practical part
The practical part intends to provide the methodological and procedural tools to deal with the translation of contracts and other documents, as analyzed in the theoretical module.
The practical part provides for the analysis of translation examples of legal text.
Jacometti. V, Pozzo B., Traduttologia e linguaggio giuridico, Wolter Kluwers, 2018
On the e-learning platform students will have access to other reading materials (e.g. power-point presentations, legislative text, contracts, etc.).
The course takes place in the first semester through a total of 50 hours of lessons.
Teaching is articulated differently in the theoretical part and in the practical part
In the theoretical part:
- ex cathedra lessons to illustrate the topics of the course, with the support of power-point presentions containing summary sheets of the key concepts of the course
- analysis of materials that will be made available to students and discussed in class, in order to allow those in-depth analysis necessary to take a critical perspective towards the whole subject
In the practical part:
- concrete examination of the problematic aspects posed by the translation of some specific legal terms, illustrated also through the use of synoptic tables
- translation of materials and in particular of some contractual models.
The lessons involve the students who will be invited to actively intervene in the discussion, in order to stimulate reasoning, critical analysis and communication-relational skills.
Office hours after lectures by appointment via email