Another misunderstanding will be that, since this text is of a „legal” nature, the translator rightly displays all the fanciful „legal expressions” that he has been able to point out here and there: „here”. Before yielding to this temptation, he should first consult a recognized authority such as Driedger „The Composition of Legislation.” He would be disappointed to learn that many of what were once considered sacred cows of legal language have long since disappeared from popular usage and are being replaced by simpler words that are understandable to the man in the street. And why not? [33, p. 64]: This verb is typical of Arabic legal discourse; It often appears in certificates, passports and it usually occurs in the passive or perfect. Research on the challenges of translating legal documents into Arabic has always been the subject of hundreds of pages of studies and debates to get to the bottom of things. However, in this article, we will divide the challenges into 3 categories. Hatim, B., A. Shunnaq, and R. Buckley. 1995.
The Legal Translator at Work: A Practical Guide. Jordan: Dar Al-Hilal. In legal English, lawyers still often use archaic words such as hierof, hiermit, oben and damit. These Old Middle English lexical terms can be found in many legal texts despite modernization efforts. Legal English is also full of Latin words from the Middle Ages, such as ad hoc, pro-rata, de facto, mutatis mutandis, among others, and ab initio. This type of lexical element has no equivalent in Arabic. The translation of arbitrary archaic terms can be done using parallel words such as the word, whatever the meaning in English, despite or despite. The archaic English terms below and below could be translated as فيما يلي – the following, and then translated as فيما بعد – meaning after. „Exposion” combined with „here” is translated as الواردة فيه, which means „mentioned in there”. The term „erection” is used in different ways in different contexts.
In the Charter of the United Nations, it says المبينة, which means „illustrated” or „mentioned”. In the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, „exposed” translates as: المنصوص عليها means „mentioned”. Also, „above” is translated as سالفة الذكر, which means „mentioned above”. These examples show that translating archaic words and expressions into Arabic is not necessarily the same thing, but they offer the translator some options that can help him find the best equivalent lexical element when translating from English to Arabic. It is unlikely that translation between English and Arabic and vice versa will become easier until English legal systems decide to change their use of archaic words. Old habits die hard and legal systems often believe that people should adapt to them and not the other way around. The cultural origins of English and Arabic are markedly different. Legal English is associated with common law and all legal terms can only be fully understood in this context and there are no direct links between common law and Arab or Islamic civil law, so legal Arabic has its context in civil law and Islamic law. The latter is used in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where the Quran and the prophetic tradition (Sunnah) are the basis of the constitution and thus maintain and enforce rules in many areas of life. In Egypt, on the other hand, it follows both civil and Islamic law.
The meaning and its legal concepts are anchored in each of the legal systems of the legal culture. The differences between these legal systems make legal translation difficult because the legal vocabulary is specific to the culture and linked to the specific legal system. As can be seen in the excerpt above, the duplicate „null and void” is translated „literally” by the same number of words: (باطلة و لاغية). The nullity of a contract or procedure entails its non-existence. This can be explained by the translations of the following two words [23, pp. 486 and 736]: Mohammed H. Al Aqad holds a Master`s degree in Linguistics, Major Translation from the Faculty of Languages and Linguistics, University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Al Aqad is currently working as a researcher at the Humanities Research Cluster, Research Management & Innovation Complex and 50603 University of Malaya, Malaysia.
His research interests include linguistics, translation studies, legal practice and forensic linguistics. In any case, Al Aqad has published and presented numerous conference papers around the world in Hong Kong, Belgium, Palestine, China, Singapore and Moscow, the last of which was at the Conference of the International Association of Forensic Linguists, in Mexico City, Mexico.