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浅谈法律翻译

 ellamoss 2016-03-09
本文作者Tony 为美国大使馆,牛津大学出版社的指定翻译服务供应商,曾先后在东华大学,上海政法学院等高校带本科生和研究生。下面是他对法律合同翻译的总结分享,联系作者可发邮件至 tonynee9@qq.com


今天的话题从一篇经济学人文章开始说起。


Mr Scalia’s “originalism”, which aims to strip politics out of judging, may bear part of the blame for the court’s decline in public estimation. Originalists strive to interpret the constitution in the light of how it was understood when it was written. They decry the opposing “living constitution” approach as shot through with bias. Such a view, Mr Scalia wrote two years into his tenure as a justice, is incompatible “with the very principle that legitimises judicial review”. A judge who looks at the constitution this way is bound to find his own values lurking there. “It is very difficult for a person to discern a difference”, Mr Scalia wrote, “between those political values that he personally thinks most important, and those political values that are ‘fundamental to our society’.” 


译文:


斯卡利亚先生(“斯卡利亚大法官”)的“原旨主义”,其目的是将政治从判决中剥离出来,法庭在公众心目中地位之下降也可部分归咎于此。原旨主义者力求本着立法者起草宪法时的初衷来解释宪法。他们公开谴责那种与其观点相左的 “活的宪法”的做法充斥着偏见。在斯卡利亚先生的法官的任期的第二年后,他开始将此观点诉诸笔端,这与“使得司法审查合法化原则”自相矛盾。以这种方式来理解宪法的法官必然会发现自己的价值观隐藏其中。斯卡利亚先生写道:“那些普通人认为最为重要的政治价值和那些‘对我们的社会至关重要’的政治价值观之间的差异,要求普通个体来分辨清楚,实属不易。”



2016年2月20日这一期的《经济学人》中,有一个人物值得引起我们的注意,此人就是Mr Scalia。本期杂志中有很多处都提到此人,此君离世引起了一场地震。本期《经济学人》多处都出现了此人的名字,第78页的Obituary专栏的主角也是Antonin Scalia。以下是该栏目对于此君的刻画:


Words had meaning. He revered them and used them scrupulously, even in insult. The law was written in words, and those ideally laid down bright lines for everyone to follow. As a committed textualist, he wasted no time looking to legislative history, the purported purpose of a law or the comments of some egregious congressman. It meant what it said. 


由此,我想到了最近闹得沸沸扬扬的苹果对抗法院判决的新闻。苹果抵抗FBI要求破解iPhone,开启了对于FBI的战争模式。另外,上月(2016年2月)还有这样一则热门新闻:美国密苏里州一个陪审团裁定,强生公司(Johnson & Johnson)须向一位因使用该公司含滑石粉的卫生用品而患癌死亡的女受害者家庭赔偿7200万美元,包括1000万美元的实际损害赔偿,以及6200万美元的惩罚性损害赔偿。这位妇女曾在长达30多年的时间里使用强生的婴儿爽身粉(Baby Powder)和优润佳(Shower To Shower)沐浴露。作为译者,我觉得有必要重新整理一下一个我们一直敬而远之的翻译领域,法律翻译。请注意,我并没有说法庭口译,而是说法律翻译。笔译永远是翻译基石,没有良好的笔译功底,永远不要指望拥有优秀的口译能力;当然,拥有良好的笔译功底,也不一定就必然意味着能成为优秀口译员。此处不再展开。


法律翻译的范围其实很广,包括了法庭报道、司法文书、法律合同等。普通人一生中会订立无数合同契约,所以离我们普通人最近的就是合同翻译。而司法文书则就离我们比较远了,刑事诉讼过程、公诉书、判词、传召令、民事判决书,貌似都是法官、检察官、律师的菜。


合同是每个人都必须打上无数次交道的文件类型。既然如此,那么我想和大家聊聊合同的翻译。下面的一段话摘自一份合同:


Whereas Licensor owns certain valuable registered trademarks and service marks, and owns and has merchandising rights to various other Licensor properties as defined in Paragraph 1 of the Rider attached hereto and hereby made a part hereof ('Name'), said Name having been used over the facilities of (certain industries or fields), and in promotional and advertising material in different  business and being well known and recognized by the general public and associated in the public mind with Licensor; and Whereas Licensee desires to utilize the Name upon and in connection with the manufacture, sale and distribution of articles hereinafter described;


也许你以为它的中文翻译应该是这样的:


鉴于许可方拥有一定价值的注册商标和服务商标,并拥有并且已经买卖了所附的第1款规定的各种其他的许可方财产的权利,并据此提出本文的一部分( “名称”) 的销售权,其他各种许可性质,表示已使用过名称(某些行业或领域),并在不同的业务宣传和广告材料是众所周知的,在公众的心目中,许可相关的设施;鉴于被许可方希望在和与制造,销售和下文所述物品分配时使用这一名称。


但更加像样的中文表达可能是这样的:


鉴于许可商拥有某些宝贵的注册商标和服务商标,并且拥有本协议附件第一段界定的买卖许可商特有的各种其他财产的权利,并据此协议将该等财产作为本协议之一部分(简称为“财产名称”),而该财产已经在某工地/领域的设施中、在各个不同行业的宣传和广告资料中使用,并且得到公众广泛认可,在公众心目中已树立起许可商的形象;以及鉴于被许可商期望在以下描述的物品的制造、销售和分销中使用该名称;


此段属于合同的序言部分,其中出现了许多让人浑身起鸡皮疙瘩的用词,比如:hereto、hereby、hereof、 hereinafter、hereby、whereas。你也许要问了,这些是什么鬼?其实这些鬼是古旧副词。这些词中都有一个共同的词根:here。here是古旧副词的词根的集大成者。对于这些词的理解,你只要掌握一个规律就可以了:由here词根构成的古旧副词都和主体文件有明确的从属关系。以下为这些词的中文表达:


herein:本合同的

hereinafter:本合同下文

hereto:跟随/附属于

hereof:本合同的

hereby:据此合同/兹

whereas:鉴于




段落中出现了owns and has,那么,你又要问了,这又是什么鬼?这其实是法律文书中的一种常见现象,叫做legal pair或者doublets,中文称为配对词。除了两个两个的配对词之外,还有三个三个的词,叫做triplets。这些意思相近或相同的赘词构成了一个固定短语。这类词在翻译时,可以只翻译其中一个词就足以表达出作者希望表达的法律概念了。具体翻译时,先确定好属于最常用的现代英语的普通词,然后就只需翻译这个词,就比较靠谱了。以下例举一些常见的doublets和triplets:


term and conditions

acknowledge and confess

alter and change

breaking and entering

each and all

force and effect

deem and consider

each and all   final and conclusive   free and clear   full and complete 

cancel, annul and set aide

right, interest and title

where词根的古旧副词是合同翻译的一大难点,如果这一点没问题了,那么至少,你能够有勇气去试一下合同翻译了。


介绍完了合同的序言部分,我们接下来再聊聊合同的定义条款的翻译。在翻译这部分时,我们除了要运用合同翻译的相关策略之外,还须具备一定的法律知识,理解一定的法律概念。以下段落的作用是定义知识产权。


'Intellectual Property Rights' means any and all tangible and intangible: (i) copyrights and other rights associated with works of authorship throughout the world, including but not limited to copyrights, neighboring rights, moral rights, and mask works, and all derivative works thereof; (ii) trademarks and trade name rights and similar rights; (iii) trade secret rights; (iv) patents, designs, algorithms, utility models, and industrial property rights, all improvements thereto; (v) all other intellectual and industrial property rights (of every kind and nature throughout the world and however designated) whether arising by operation of law, contracts ,license, or otherwise; and (vi) all registration, applications, renewals, extensions, continuations, divisions, or reissues thereof now or thereafter in force (including any rights in any of the foregoing).


参考译文:


“知识产权”指所有有形或无形的权利,即 (1)与在世界各地的有著作权的作品有关的版权及其他权利,包括但不限于版权、邻接权、精神权利及掩膜作品以及所有由以上述权利衍生而来的权利;(2)商标权以及贸易名权及类似的权利;(3)商业秘密权;(4)专利权、 设计权、算法权、实用品模型权及工业产权,及其改进品的权利;(5)所有其他知识及工业产权(包括在世界各地的任何类型和性质的产权——不管以何种形式指定的权利)无论是通过法律、 合同、证书或其他方式 的运作而产生的;(6)以及所有注册权、应用权、更新权、扩充权、 持续权、分割权,或在目前或今后重新签发权 (包括对前述任何一项的任何权利)。


大家对于'Intellectual Property Rights' 一定不陌生,但是除了copyrights之外,包括在知识产权中的其它权利,如neighboring rights、moral rights或mask works,大家可能就不知所云了。以下是对于这三个概念的解释:


Neighboring rights (邻接权),也叫“相关权利”(Related rights),它依附于著作权人,没有著作权,邻接权就失去其基础。主要包括图书、报刊出版者的权利,艺术表演者的权利,录音、录像制作人的权利,广播电台、电视台的权利等。维基百科对于Related rights的解释是:


Related rights is a term in copyright law, used in opposition to the term 'authors' rights'. The term neighbouring rights is exactly equivalent, and is a more literal translation of the original French droits voisins. Related rights in civil law are similar to authors' rights, but are not connected with the work's actual author. Both authors' rights and related rights are copyrights in the sense of English or U.S. law. There is no single definition of related rights, which vary much more widely in scope between different countries than authors' rights. The rights of performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organisations are certainly covered, and are internationally protected by the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations[2] signed in 1961.


Moral rights (道德权)也是由版权/著作权衍生而来,包括发表作品的署名权、匿名权、使用假名权以及保护作品完整性的权利(即不被任意改编的权利)等等。维基百科的英文网站对于Moral rights的解释是:Moral rights are rights of creators of copyrighted works generally recognized in civil law jurisdictions and, to a lesser extent, in some common law jurisdictions.


Mask works (掩膜作品),在美国指集成电路布图设计图,“掩膜作品” 的译文是根据美国对该定义翻译而成的;在日本,同一概念称作“电路布图”(Circuit Layout),瑞典称为“布图设计”(Layout Design),欧盟许多国家称为拓扑图(Topography)。我们同样可以在维基百科的英文网站找到相关的解释:


In United States intellectual property law, a 'mask work' is a two or three-dimensional layout or topography of an integrated circuit (IC or 'chip'), i.e. the arrangement on a chip of semiconductor devices such as transistors and passive electronic components such as resistors and interconnections. The layout is called a mask work because, in photolithographic processes, the multiple etched layers within actual ICs are each created using a mask, called the photomask, to permit or block the light at specific locations, sometimes for hundreds of chips on a wafer simultaneously.


翻译法律合同,除了需要了解一定的法律术语之外,还要了解英语法律用语所使用的正式词汇。正式词汇也是英语合同的一大特色。这也是很多人拿到老外撰写的译文法律合同,总觉得和自己平时接触的英文文章不一样,有点怪怪的,但又说不出具体哪里奇怪的原因。


下面的这句话摘自一份英文法律合同:


If any party is unwilling to resolve a dispute through consultation, or no settlement can be reached within 90 days after the commencement of the consultation, they shall submit the case to the Chinese International Arbitration Committee for Economy and Trade to be arbitrated in Beijing in accordance with its procedures and rules.


参考译文:


任何一方不愿意协商解决,或者在协商开始后的90日内不能解决的,应当将争议提交中国国际经济贸易仲裁委员会,根据该会的仲裁程序和规则在北京进行仲裁。


请注意,原文中出现了commencement,这就是英文法律合同中使用的正式语言。现将关于英语法律合同中的正式用语和普通英语表达总结如下:


aforesaid/said (above-mentioned/前述的)

cessation (end, close/结束)

commencement (start, beginning/开始)

consummation (completion/完成)

counterpart (copy/副本)

duly (properly/适当地)

execute (sign/签署)

forthwith (at once/随即)

from time to time (often/不时/时常)

in accordance with (according to/根据)

including without limitation (including /包括但不限于)

in respect of (regarding/conccming/关于)

material (important/重要的)

notwithstanding (although/尽管)

prior to (before/之前)

provided that (but, however,except/但)

purported (supposed, alleged/据称的)

pursuant to (under/按照)

save (except/除外)

subsequent (after, following/之后) 

termination (end/终止)

the deceased/the decedent (the dead/死去的人)

whereas (considering/鉴于)

without prejudice to (without affecting/在不影响/损害情况下)


通过对于译文合同中的鉴于条款的翻译方法的对比和讲解,对于定义条款中的法律术语的解释,以及对于英文法律合同的正式用语的整理,相信你对于法律合同的翻译策略与难点要点有了一个初步的了解。建议大家多找一些大律所所撰写的英文合同来练习,多实践,多总结,一定会有所收获的。

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