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@article{ART002596216},
author={Jieun Lee and Choi, Hyo-eun},
title={Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation},
journal={The Journal of Translation Studies},
issn={1229-795X},
year={2020},
volume={21},
number={2},
pages={251-284},
doi={10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010}

TY - JOUR
AU - Jieun Lee
AU - Choi, Hyo-eun
TI - Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation
JO - The Journal of Translation Studies
PY - 2020
VL - 21
IS - 2
PB - The Korean Association for Translation Studies
SP - 251
EP - 284
SN - 1229-795X
AB - This paper seeks to throw some light on the linguistic aspects of legal translation with a focus on the frequent use of the passive voice in Korean-English legal translation. Legal translation is a domain of specialized translation, which requires an understanding of the relevant laws and legal language, in addition to translation competence. In each jurisdiction, law has its own languages and every legal system is embedded in a specific culture and language. The passive voice is considered as one of the main features of legal language in general although it is not as common as the active voice. The passive voice may be employed in Korean to English legal translation to preserve the source language style or conform to the characteristics of legal English. Furthermore, the characteristics of Korean legal language can also affect the use of the passive voice in the translated statutes. In order to examine the use of the passive voice in translated statutes, we built corpora of Korean statutes, their English translations, and the United States Code. The three-set corpora consisted of Korean Criminal Act, Criminal Procedure Act, Civil Act, and Civil Procedure Act, the official English translations provided by the Korean Law Translation Center of Korea Legislation Research Institute, and the non-translated U.S. Code which served as a comparable corpus. The corpus analysis revealed that the frequency of the passive voice in the translations far surpassed those of the source texts, namely the Korean statutes and the U.S. federal law. The high frequency shown in the translated statutes is mostly due to the linguistic features of Korean legal language: Inexplicit subjects due to subject ellipses in Korean statutes contributed to passive voice constructions in the translated texts. Further research is needed to investigate if such over-use of the passive voice is acceptable from the perspective of target language recipients and verify the regularities of translated statutes drawing on a larger scale corpus.
KW - legal translation;statutes;passive voice;comparative corpus;parallel corpus;subject ellipsis
DO - 10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010
ER -

Jieun Lee and Choi, Hyo-eun. (2020). Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation. The Journal of Translation Studies, 21(2), 251-284.

Jieun Lee and Choi, Hyo-eun. 2020, "Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation", The Journal of Translation Studies, vol.21, no.2 pp.251-284. Available from: doi:10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee, Choi, Hyo-eun "Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation" The Journal of Translation Studies 21.2 pp.251-284 (2020) : 251.

Jieun Lee, Choi, Hyo-eun. Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation. 2020; 21(2), 251-284. Available from: doi:10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee and Choi, Hyo-eun. "Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation" The Journal of Translation Studies 21, no.2 (2020) : 251-284.doi: 10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee; Choi, Hyo-eun. Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation. The Journal of Translation Studies, 21(2), 251-284. doi: 10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee; Choi, Hyo-eun. Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation. The Journal of Translation Studies. 2020; 21(2) 251-284. doi: 10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee, Choi, Hyo-eun. Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation. 2020; 21(2), 251-284. Available from: doi:10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010

Jieun Lee and Choi, Hyo-eun. "Corpus-based Research on the Linguistic Aspects of Translated Legal Texts: With a Focus on the Passive Voice in Legal Translation" The Journal of Translation Studies 21, no.2 (2020) : 251-284.doi: 10.15749/jts.2020.21.2.010