Abstract With the rapid development of society, the connection between the countries becomes more and more closely, communication is gradually increased, accordingly, the pergence must be increased, at this time, legal English translation becomes more and more necessary. However, we should know that the legal system of western countries is different from ours, their legal concept is also different from ours, especially the different writing methods of legal texts, so we must take the factors into account during the process of English legal texts into Chinese. Therefore, we need some relevant theories to guide our thoughts and behaviors to translate. The thesis holds that functionalist skopos translation theory is more applicable to guide legal English translation. Through the research, we will find that skopos theory provides us a new perspective to translate English legal texts.56294

Keywords: pergence; functionalist skopos translation theory; legal English translation

摘要随着经济全球化的快速发展，各国间的联系越来越密切，交流日益增多，当然分歧也会随之增多，这时法律英语翻译就显得尤为重要。但是，西方国家的法律体系与我国的法律体系不同，法律理念不同，特别是法律文本的撰写方式不同，在法律英语文本汉译的过程中，我们必然要将这些因素考虑进去。因此，我们需要一些有关的理论去指导我们翻译。本文作者认为功能目的论比较适用于指导法律英语翻译。通过研究，我们将会发现目的论为我们提供了一个全新的角度去翻译法律英语文本。

毕业论文关键词：分歧；功能目的论；法律英语翻译

Contents

1. Introduction 1

2. Literature Review 1

3. The Translation Features of Legal English 2

3.1 From the Textual Aspect 2

3.2 From the Syntactic Aspect 3

3.3 From the Lexical Aspect 5

4. The Translation Principles of Skopos Translation Theory 7

4.1 Brief Introduction 7

4.2 Applying Skopos Rule 8

4.3 Applying Coherence Rule 8

4.4 Applying Fidelity Rule 9

5. Conclusion 10

Works Cited 12

1. Introduction 

With the rapid development of economic, the connection between the countries becomes more and more closely, communication is gradually increased, accordingly, the pergence must be increased, at this time, legal English translation becomes increasingly necessary. That is to say, we have to translate English legal texts.

However, we should know that the legal system of western countries is different from our country’s, their legal concept is also different from ours, especially the different writing methods of legal texts, so we are bound to meet many problems during the process of English legal texts into Chinese. Therefore, to improve the translation quality of legal English texts, we need some relevant theories to guide our thoughts and behaviors to further explore that field. Skopos theory presented by Hans J. Vermeer is more applicable to legal English translation. In the theory, Vermeer believes that the key in the process of translation is translation purpose. He said in this way “Any form of translational action, including translation itself may be conceived as an action, as the name implies. Any action has a purpose, the word skopos, and then is a technical term for the aim or purpose of a translation.” (Nord 1997: 12) From the above words, we should know that Skopos theory can provide us a new perspective to translate legal English texts.