Luận văn tốt nghiệp: Examining legal English major studens'' difficulties in translating legal texts at Hanoi Law University

Although thecharacteristics of legal English pose significant obstacles in understandingforeign legal texts, translation plays a crucial role in helping legalprofessionals, For training

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

LE THIHA LINH

440114

EXAMINING LEGAL ENGLISH MAJOR

STUDENTS! DIFFICULTIES IN TRANSLATING LEGAL TEXTS AT HANOI LAW UNIVERSITY

NGHIEN CỨU NHUNG KHO KHAN TRONG DỊCH THUẬT VAN BAN PHÁP LÝ CUA SINH VIÊN NGÀNH NGÔN NGU ANH

TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC LUAT HÀ NỘI.

Major: Legal English

GRADUATION THESIS

Supervisor

Vu Van Tuan, Ph.D

Hanoi - 2023

STUDENT DECLARATION

A thesis is never successfully completed in isolation I received help,encouragement, critique, and consolation from many people who deserveacknowledgement

‘The researcher is greatly indebted to the invaluable assistance andsupport of the following generous and talented people who have madeotherwise abstract, complex and random thoughts come into shape this workright now, she wishes to express her sincere gratitude to all those who helpedherin the completion of this humble research work which she hopes to give

as her contribution to the efforts of teachers to provide excellence in thecompletion of her research, They are legion, but because of limited space,only a few are named here, while most are treasured more in her memoryand heart,

First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to mysupervisor, Dr Vu Van Tuan, for his unwavering support and guidance

‘throughout this research His insightful comments, constructive feedback,and invaluable expertise have been instrumental in shaping this dissertationTam immensely grateful for his patience, generosity, and encouragement

I would also like to thank the faculty members and staff of the Faculty

of Foreign Languages, Hanoi Law University, whose dedication to teachingand research has been an inspiration to me Their support, guidance, andencouragement have been invaluable throughout my studies

I would like to extend my sincere appreciation to my family, who have

‘been my constant source of love, support, and encouragement Theirunwavering belief in me has been the driving force behind my success, andTam forever grateful for their love and guidance

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my friends and

classmates, who have been source of inspiration and motivation throughout

my studies Their encouragement, help, and support have been invaluable to

‘me, and Iam thankful for theirunwavering belief in me

In conclusion, I am deeply grateful to all those who have supported

‘me in completing this graduation thesis Without their help, guidance, and

In the global integration era, legal professionals are now required tohave comprehensive knowledge of different legal jurisdictions Although thecharacteristics of legal English pose significant obstacles in understandingforeign legal texts, translation plays a crucial role in helping legalprofessionals, For training purposes of future legal translators, the researcherfeels it necessary to conduct a study on the difficulties in translating legaltexts of legal English students This graduation thesis focuses on examiningthe hardships that Legal English major undergraduates undergo whiletranslating legal texts at Hanoi Law University, accordingly, someresolutions would be proposed to get rid of these hindrances to legal Englishtranslation In the process of conducting research, the researcher employed

‘a mixed-methods approach that involved both qualitative and quantitativemethods The data were collected thanks to primary sources such asquestionnaires and interviews The results of the study reveal that the maindifficulties leamers face in translating legal texts are related to the lexicalcharacteristics of legal English The study recommends that more effectiveand inclusive legal English translation techniques should be employed byEnglish major undergraduates, depending on their autonomous leamingFrom this perspective, they should be promoted to use informationtechnology, especially utilising Intemet resources for broadening theirkmowdedge about not only laws but also legal English to satisfy career

expectations

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PageStudent deciaration di

Acknowledgement iv Abstract vị

4 4 4

555

5

667

CHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEW 7

1.1 Translation 11.2 Legal texts 81.3 Legal English 10

3.5.2 The analysis of solutions to overcome the difficulties of

ordinary words with special meanings when translatinglegal texts

141611718

3.5 3 The analysis of solutions to deal with the use of doubletsand tnplets conveying a single legal concept whentranslating legal texts

3.5.4 Theanalysis of solutions to translate archaic expressions

4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 50

4.31 Limitation 50

4.3.2 Suggestion 50

REFERENCES 51

APPENDIX a

LIST OF TABLES

Page

Table 1 Profiles of the respondents involved in the study 3

Table 2 Lesäcal-related difficulties 1

Table 12 Solutions to overcome the problems of doublets and 42triplets conveying a single legal concept when translating legal

texts

Table 13 Solutions to overcome Foreign Words/Maxims 44

‘borrowing from Latin or French origin in legal texts

Table 14 Solution to address the issues of reciprocal words in 45translating legal texts

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

the Socialist Republic of Vietnam

People's Security Academy

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Legal regulation of society includes using language to mediate nationaland intemational social relations in law In the era of globalisation,intemational contracts and treaties have significantly increased This includes

a wide range of new-generation free trade agreements, which come with quality and complex commitments, As a result, professionals are required tohavea deep understanding English legalese is known for its professionalism(Matsyupa et al., 2022, pp 64-66) and complexity, thus malang it hard tounderstand its terms Since language is the only means to develop legalconcepts, translation is believed to be focal in the modem world, especially for

high-‘egal professionals Furthermore, translation can help narrow the differences inthe field of economic, social, and technological progress between developedand developing countries by providing access to legal concepts andterminology that may be unfamiliar to legal professionals in certain regionsNot only do developing nations depend on translation to fill the gap with otherdeveloped countries, butit also affords access toa core meaning that some legalprofessionals need help understanding a foreign language Equally important

to nations, translation plays an essential role in leaming As mentioned,facilitating the transfer of Imowledge presented in different languages isessential, and translation playsa crucial roleinaccomplishingit For this reason,professional leamers, in the process of developing their skills, can usetranslation as an aid to enhance foreign languages and as well as professionalknowledge (Mart, 2013, pp 103-105)

Inthe field of English language teaching (ELT), there is a specific focus

on teaching and learning English for particular purposes, which is Imown asEnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP) rather than general English (GE) orEnglish for Academic Purposes (EAP) (Vu & Tran, 2023) Leaming ESP is

‘becoming increasingly necessary in today's worldas the demand for specialisedJanguage skills continues growing ESPis designed to caterto students’ specificEnglish needs for a particular field or profession For instance, medicalprofessionals require ESPs to communicate effectively with patients andcolleagues within their field In reality, the need for ESP is not limited toprofessionals, only students who plan to study abroad or pursue a specificacademic vocation need ESP to achieve and communicate effectively in theirfield of study Asa result, the necessity of leaming ESP must be consideredImplemented in the legal field, likewise, ESP legal English, known as legalEnglish, is necessary in today’s world In this regard, in the joumey of pursuingegal professions in the era of globalisation, legal English is needed tounderstand legal terminologies in native English countnies and multilateralintemational relations.

Legal English is known for its complexity and professionalism, and itincludes either specific terminology or concepts which are essential to the legalstudy This distinctive language is used to facilitate legal mediation of socialrelations between nations and individuals on a global scale, and it plays asignificant role in legal documents, contracts, and treaties as well In contrast,one of the primary difficulties in leaming legal English is the compleaity of itsterminology and concepts (Nhac, 2022), Legal professionals need to have adeep understanding of legal English to moderate the language and interpret the

‘meaning oflegal textsaccurately Moreover, legal English still includesarchaicand Latin expressions that can be challenging to understand Another difficulty

of legal English reflects the remarkable diversity from one country to another,which leads to the possible situation of using the legal terminology in thesecountries’ jurisdiction differently In view of this, legal professionals areexpected to be armed with a comprehensive understanding of the legal system

of the country or region concemed Translating legal English, to some extent,raises significant challenges due to the differences in legal systems, laws, and

cultural contexts Legal translators are supposed to be experts in a variety oflanguages and possess a profound comprehension of legal terminologies toensure accurate and effective translation Overall, legal English is a highlyexclusive language which requires extensive knowledge and understanding ofthe Legal field's terminology and concepts It causes significant challenges tolegal professionals and translators alike, making it essential to leam and studythe language in-depth

Some striking scholars have discussed the length of translating legaldocuments until now Specially, Altay (2004) states in his research thattranslating legal texts (from English into Turkish and vice versa) poses several

‘egal language problems closely resembling the distinctive characteristics ofthe Legal systems and languages used in English and Turkish contexts In thisaspect, the Vietnamese language shares some similarities with the case study

in Turkey, which has a different nature of legal teminology from countrieswhere English is spoken as the mother tongue, such as the United Kingdom(UK) or the United States of America (USA) Nevertheless, the research can beseenasa frameworkc-based theory only but lacking the applicable one Camelia(2014) also researches the translation of legal documents Although herresearch demonstrates that Latin juridical expression and cultural differenceshinder the translation of legal documents, the study does not specify the scopedespite the fact differences in translating between leamers and professionals

‘Ma and Nguyen (2019) are the two Vietnamese scholars conductinga study ontranslating legal texts They conclude that significant challengesin the accuratetranslation of legal terminology from English to Vietnamese include non-equivalence of legal systems and laws, linguistic difficulties, and culturalobstacles Nonetheless, they only conduct theoretical research but need toillustrate which obstacles affect translators the most Moreover, sharingsimilarities wath other foreign studies, the scope of the above research does notfocus on any subject; thus, these problems are considered general rather than

3

specific for legal English undergraduates As a general rule, after analysingsome studies implemented by researchers on the translation of legal Englishinside and outside Vietnam, it can be seen that the need for applicable research.

on translating legal text and special scope is still insufficient

In general, as aforementioned, the applicable research on the translation

of legal texts by legal English major leamers can be defined as the research gap

‘Therefore, the researcher recognises the necessity to do an insight study on thisfield to come up with more worthy solutions to help those who are in demand

of using legal English in their professions Realising the noteworthiness ofunderstanding the hardships in translating legal texts with leamers, theresearcher decided to implement the study with legal English major students ofcourses 45 and 46 (K45 and K46 students) from the Faculty of Legal ForeignLanguages at Hanoi Law University (HLU) during the first term of the 2023-

204 academic year

2 Aims and objective of the study

2.1, Aims of the study

‘The study examines the difficulties of legal English major students intranslating legal texts under these aims

- To highlight the problems of legal English major students intranslating legal documents at HLU;

~ _ To propose solutions to help legal English major students overcomethe obstacles

2.2 Objectives of the study

- Toconduct a survey questionnaire to examine which difficulties mostaffect English students in translating legal texts;

- To conduct a semi-structured interview to ascertain the difficultieslegal English major students confront when translating legal texts

3 Research questions

Generally, the study aimed to find the difficulties in translating legaltexts of legal English major undergraduates at HLU to recommend someinitiatives for legal English translation

Specifically, the study tends to answer the following questions

(1) What are the difficulties associated wath translating legal texts?(Which proposals are put-forward to help legal English majorstudents enhance their abilities in accurately translating legal texts?

4 Scopes of the study

The research examines the perception of 241 legal English majorundergraduates in the 45th and 46th courses at HLU to discover the difficulties

in translating legal documents at HLU during the first term of the 2023-2024academic year

5 Significances of the study

This research would contribute to overcoming the difficulties of LegalEnglish translation specifically applied to legal English students at HLU

6 Methodology of the study

‘Theresearch used the mixed-methods approach to examine the hardships

in ‘translating legal texts possibly confronted with legal English majorundergraduates at HLU The data used in this study were exploited through theresearcher-designed questionnaire and semi-structured interviews Thequestionnaire was intentional to collect information about the reason whyrespondents found legal English translation difficult, and the semi-structuredinterviews would generate more subjective perspectives from leamersResearchers would gather and scrutinise the collected data carefully to makeaccountability results for the purpose of coming up with more precise,persuasive conclusions and worthy solutions

7 Hypothesis of the study

The study on legal English — major students in HLU may find thefollowing hypothesis

- There is no difficulty for students in translating the complexity ofEnglish Iegalese, Latin terminology, and equivalence in lexical

meanings.

3 Structure of the study

‘The study includes 3 Parts, mainly organised as follows

The first partis the Introduction, which contains the research’ s rationale,aims, research question, significance, scope, methodology and hypothesis

‘The second part is Development, which is subdivided into the following

sections

Chapter 1 Literature review provides some theoretical backgroundand related research conceming the difficulties of translating Legal documents

of Legal English leamers studying at HLU

Chapter 2 Methodology offers information on the tools used to

collect data, the procedures followed to collect that data, and the methods used

to analyse the collected data at HLU

Chapter 3 Results and discussion demonstrate the survey results,which detail the analysed reasons for Legal English translation difficulties ofegal English students at HLU

The last part is Conclusion, which summarises the study's results,drawing out some implications and identifies the limitations of the research

PART II DEVELOPMENTCHAPTER 1 LITERATURE REVIEWThis section discusses the theory related to difficulties in translatingEnglish legal texts, thus usingit to formulate the theoretical framework of this,research.

‘Nida (1964) demonstrates another definition of translation In his work,

he considers translation to bea scientific discipline Furthermore, he points outthat “The scientific descnption of message translation between languages isvalid” (p 30) It can be understood that “a valid subject for scientificdescription” (Nida, 1964, p 3; as cited in Jixing, 2013) is not necessarilyanother written or verbal language but any valid type of language

Conceming the Westem translation scholars of the linguistic group,besides Catford and Nida, Newmark (1988; 2001) is the theorist who must benoticed He states “Often, though not by any means always, rendering a text inanother language as intended by the authoris translation.” (p 5) For that wide-scope definition, it can be acknowledged that there are no absolute transiaionsfor Newmark, and everything is conditioned

Apart from the scholars who have hada significant impact on translationstudies and in the linguistics field, there have obviously been researchersconducting studies on translation in the past 20 years.

Hermans (2019) lightly defines the definition as saying the same thing

or something which amounts to the same thing in a different language In otherterms, trandation's definition proposed by Hermans (2019) means thereplacement, or substitutions, of an utterance in one language by either aformally, semantically, or pragmatically equivalent utterance in anotherlanguage

‘With those definitions, but not limited to the above, the researcher drawsout this study's definition of translation, emphasising English-Vietnamesetranslation It follows that translation refers to transferring meaning fom thesource language (SL) English to the target language (TL), Vietnamese

12 Legal texts

The definition of legal texts (legal documents) depends on the countryand legal system

HLU states that legal documents express the will of the government,

‘which is issued in relation to the form and procedures prescribed by law and

are always mandatory and guaranteed to be implemented by the state (2021a1,

p 8), This understandings used nationwide in Vietnam, while legal documentsare understood to be issued by, for the most part, the govemment or,specifically, the authority's organs With this definition, HLU divides legaldocuments into two types on the basis of their legal nature: legal normativedocuments and legally applicable documents Despite that, the scope of legaldocuments prescribed by HLU is relatively small to become a subject in thestudy of legal translation

Hei Law Uhivesty 20218) Developing Legal Dociment Couaze Book [Giáo phi Xp đọng Von bến

‘php ud) Hi Nột N8, Công An Nhân Din

8

‘There are hardly any research studies available on the definition of legaltexts; thereby, under the context of legal translation study, the researchersubjectively reckons in this study that the legal texts or so-called legaldocranents tnciude foreign legal normative documents, treaties and other legalsources which are written in English

(1) Foreign legal normative documents can be defined as documents thatcontain legal norms which are promulgated in accordance with the foreign

competence, order, and procedures and waitten in English language? There

hardly ever is any exact definition of English legal normative documents due

to the various legal systems; nonetheless, in this research, this type includescodes of law, decree, etc This type of legal texts is widely used in Civil lawcountries Notwithstanding, itis not the primary subject oflegal translation due

to the unwarranted translation of foreign codes of laws or decrees in practiceinside Vietnam soil

() A treaty is an intemational agreement concluded between States inwritten form and govemed by intemational law, whether embodied in a singleinstrument or in two or more related instruments and whatever its particulardesignation (The Vienna Convention, Article 2(1)(a)) In the global integration

ra, the more intemational agreements have been signed, the more they need tobeaware Meanwhile, not all of them are wnitten in Vietnamese, while English

is one of the six official languages of the United Nations (UN)? (HLU, 2021b*,

p 89); hence, translation is needed

(8) Other legal sources include but are not limited to legal contracts,verdicts, cases of law, and texts containing legal terms other than those

‘mentioned earlier, which are waitten in English While this type of legal texts,

aferto the đưiniim of xenmarirt document sted in Vitam Law on Pronmigton of Legal Documents 2015 sgplemewsd by Law on Prommlgtion of Legal Đọctaene 2020,

ps Jem ce ag©l4=371608:docG2200151echosgc16t/psgggupid=3

L3] guages imps omen argsies-trst:cficBl ngage =

+ Hinot Lave Dnsoeray C0319) fterational Lew Cove Book [Go nih Lue Oude tf Hà Nật NOB Công An Nhân Din

°

is not stated in any laws and research, the researcher considers this type theprimary subject of the legal translation because it is used popularly in Vietnam.and other countries.

in Vietnam was amalgamated across the entire country In order to provideeducation and training for the Vietnamese new-bom legal system, the school

of law was organised in 1976 at Hanoi University (under the Ministry ofEducation and Training ~ the MOET), named Hanoi University Faculty of Law(now the University of Law of Hanoi National University) University of Law

- Hanoi National University, 2022) In 1979, HLU was established based on

‘merging the Faculty of Law of Hanoi University and Vietnam Legal Studies

College, pursuant to Decision No 405/CP dated November 10%, 1979, of the

Govemment Council At that time, the University was named “Hanoi LegalStudies University” with the continual mission of "Developing Hanoi LegalStudies University as a training centre for legal staff, a legal research centreand a centre for the dissemination of legal thoughts” by the Prime Minister's

decision No 1156/QD-TTg dated on September 30, 20226 After more than 45

years of development, Vietnam has witnessed a rapid growth in the number of

5 ps asap st omen beni Que inh 408-CP dn Wp Truong dạ học pap TH, NH2

[ps asp st jen ben/Gino- du Quyet din 1156-QD- Tg 2022 sy dmg: Dạihạc Tu Be

‘Notun rung ong dio plap-bie 531133 a

10

Jaw training institutions By 2015-2016, the number of facilities offering lessthan 10 training units in the early 2000s increased to nearly 50, with projections

of nearly 100 facilities by 2021 (The Kha, 2021)

Overall, Vietnam's law bachelor training institutions can be classifiedinto three main groups

(1) Universities specialising in law These include Hanoi Law University(HLU) and Ho Chi Minh City University of Law(ULAW),

) Law Universities under National Universities and RegionalUniversities In the north of Vietnam, there is the University of Law underHanoi National University (VNU-UL) At the same time, in the centre of

‘Vietnam, there is the University of Law under Hue University (HUL), In thesouth, the University of Economics and Law under the National University HoChi Minh City (UEL) is one of the examples

() Law faculties belonging to multidisciplinary universities, Forezample, the Faculty of Law of Trade Union University (TUU), the Faculty ofLaw of National Economic University (NEU) and the Faculty of Law of HanoiOpen University (HOU)

Typically, there are a number of specific law bachelors traininginstitutions, such as the People's Police University (T02), the People's SecurityAcademy (C500), the Viemam Court Academy (VCA), and the HanoiProcuratorate University (HPU) Although these establishments providetraining to officials in the State agency system, some programs grant bachelor'sdegrees in lawto students upon graduation

Being aware of the importance of ESP in the legal context, from 2013through 2014, a legal English major was added as one of the undergraduateprogrammes at HLU and ULAW (HLU, 2014; ULAW, 2020) This field ofstudy is relatively newin Vietnam, with few undergraduate programs available

‘The training program aims to produce professionals who have a strong grasp

"

of both legal English and basic legal Imowledge to be able to use it tocommunicate and workin a legal field working environment, meeting the needs

of society

Legal English has always been researched by scholars from all aroundthe globe, including Vietnam Williams (2004) points out that legal languageencompasses various categories, each having its distinct and often interrelatedfeatures, which range from spoken language in court through cross-evamination between lawyers and witnesses to the relatively standardised

‘instructions given to jury members (William, 2004) to written legal language

in case law,lawreport and prescriptive legal texts This definition encompassesall forms of legal language, including legal English; thus, legal English inheritsall features of legal language In contrast, each language has its significance,consequently, legal English creates its own besides having legal languagecharacteristics Another definition suggested by Frade (2007) articulates that

‘egal English is the language used in the Anglo-American common law system

It is considered the common language for intemational commercial and legaltransactions This language has spread to Outer and Expanding Circle countries,due to the influence of Bntish and American colonialism (Frade, 2007) Thisdefinition interprets that legal English only takes root in the USA and the UKThis is proven true because the USA and the UK are the original English-speaking countries Sharing the resemblance, when researching thecharacteristics and features of legal English vocabulary, Veretina-Chiriac(2012) defines legal English as one of the legal languages, which is thelanguage of English common law in England, America, and other English-speaking countries (pp 103-107)

After discussing some definitions, the researcher draws out her definitionoflegal English for this research: “Legal Zngitsh ts apart ofthe legal language,which can be defined as the specific language of ics used tn the legal contextand created by English-speaking countries” Accordingly, legal English

bì

contains the following characteristics grouped into two following Chiriac, 2012).

(Veretina-© Lexical features group:

(2) Archaisms In the Legal context, Archaic words are usedfrequently, compared with other contests; on the contrary, in a normal context,Archaic hardly ever be used, thus making it obscure over time (Stangjevic,

2011, pp 65-72) For instance, iter alta, hereof, and whereof (and furtherderivative, including at, in ~affer, - ba/Ðre, -with, -by - above, -on, - upon)

(2) Technical terms Technical terms in legal English are known fortheir unique meanings While most legal terms are familiar to laypersons, such

as share and patent, others are only recognised by legal professionals, ¢ g, bailand tort (Haigh, 2004, xvi) The reason for such characteristic is that legalEnglish is derived from French and Latin and is treated asa word with specific

‘meanings only within the legal context (Stanojevic, 2011)

(3) Doubiets and triplets Synonym pairs and strings can be classifiedinto doublets and triplets, meaning these pairs nonmally have the same meaningand can be used either way; however, in legal English, using doublets andtriplets is considered a custom of legal communifies For example, it includescactand deed terms and conditions, promise, agree and covenant While these

‘were initially done for completeness (Mykhailova, 2012), using two or more

‘words that convey the same meaning conceptually is redundant nowadays

‘because it does litte to the meaning itself (Stanojevic, 2011) except to make itsound professional

(4) Phrasal verbs Some phrasal verbs are designed to be used in aquasi-technical sense (Stanojevic, 2011), which refers to a somewhat technical

or partially technical meaning or context For instance, enter mito a contract andput down deposits

(5) Reciprocal words and tities Reciprocal words and titles could berephrased as words and titles that have a corresponding or complementary

3

meaning Legal English specifically contains pairs of words that reciprocally

‘match with each other, wherefore, professionals especially use these words in.such significant words, but no other synonymous words, ¢.g., claimant anddefendant, ward and guardian employer and employee

© Syntactic features group’

(6) Sentence length In legal contexts, sentences often have peculiarstructures and are complex, which causes difficulties in understanding andtranslating in practice

(7) _ Nominatisation A nominalisation is changing verbs into nouns,1ikein such legal texts For example, in normal texts, itis said that “to considerwhile in legal texts, it is written in the form of “fo give consideration(Stangjevic, 2011)

(8) _Inpersonal style Similar to writing academic papers, in legal texts,

it is common for lawyers to use passive voice or peculiar pronouns to reducesuch identity while emphasising actions (Williams, 2004, p 114)

1.4, Previous studies

Camelia (2009) proposed that difficulties in translating legal texts,induding a group of Latin words, are the primary contributors to the Englishlanguage and have no equivalent counterparts, hence representing “law” itselfand presentinga certain linguistic interest; the descriptive way of translation ofsome Latin juridical words and word combinations, Juridical terms have onlyone meaning and are not context-ependent Consequently, she pointed out thatobstacles in translating legal texts arise not from specialised terms but fromcultural associations In order to draw some conclusions, the author analysedvarious works by Romanian and foreign authors She also exemplified the casestudies and examples, the comparative approach through qualitative researchand the observation method starting from empirical research

In the same way, studying to find hurdles in translating legal texts,Alshaikh (2022) examined 53 students at King Saud University and Iman

“

‘Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University, accounting for 50% of the research.population The findings of Alshaikh's research showed that the majorchallenges Saudi translation undergraduates come across when translating legalcontracts include binominal expressions and parallel structure, sentencestructure, multiple negatives, and text layout (Alshaileh, 2022) To eliminate thedifficulties, the author stated that Saudi leamers use computer-assistedtranslation (CAT) and Google Translation as technology translation tools andparallel tests as strategies when translating legal contracts

Sofyan and Rosa (2021) illustrate that the problem encountered intranslating legal texts from Bahasa Indonesia into English is finding the correct,equivalent in English legal terminology This difficulty is because legal terms

in Bahasa Indonesia do not correspond to legal terms in English or vice versa

On the other hand, the translator's insufficient knowledge of the English legalJanguage is contemplated in their translation, causing difficulty in translatinglegal texts Moreover, the need to decode the structure of SL is known as one

of the problems To determine those hardships, the data were analysed byconducting a five-month research on translating 15 legal texts documented inthe Language Centre of Universitas Sumatera Utara by less than three years ofexperience semi professional translators employed in the Language Centre

To investigate the translation of Legal English Text in Indonesia, Karjo(2015) concluded that the foremost problem is the employment of literal

‘translation Furthermore, choosing the inappropriate meanings of thepolysemous words, which processed various meanings (Karjo, 2016) and theinability of leamers to construct the translations into acceptable TL sentencesare regarded as problems in translating Legal English texts In the process ofdrawing these conclusions, the author conducted research by examining thirtyleemers from the English Department at Bina Nusantara University whoentered Business and Legal translation as an obligate in their sixth term

1s

A number of research studies have been conducted in Vietnam toinvestigate the challenges of translating legal documents, which are extremelylimited Ma and Nguyen (2019) pointed out that the differences in legal systemsand laws, linguistic difficulties, and cultural problems are the three obstacles toEnglish-Vietnamese translating legal texts.

15 Summary

Asa whole, this chapter has given an overview of the previous studiesthat have examined the challenges related to translatinglegal texts In particular,each section serves the role of helping the researcher to determine thetheoretical framework, which greatly contributes to accurately conducting andimplementing research by forming a strong foundation In the first section ofthe chapter, various translation theories have been critically discussed to drawouta suitable definition of translation for this research Sharing the resemblance,the second section of the chapter addressed the legal concept of legaldocuments to conclude the definition of legal texts for this particular study Thethird section of the chapter aims to provide an in-depth analysis of the nature

of legal English by exploring its various definitions The fourth part reviewsthe previous studies and discusses the problems of translating legal texts,

Taking this chapter as a background, the researcher draws attention tothe most important chapter in this part by presenting the methodology toevamine the obstacle of translating the legal texts of Legal English, majorundergraduates at HLU

16

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY

‘The research methods and techniques used in this chapter are present forthe data collection The chapter presents the research design, restates research.questions, shares participant information, and serves as the research roadmapThisis followed by a discussion of the method used for collecting data, and thedata collection stratagem and data analysis are clarified to get the researchresults

2.1 Research design

‘The researcher utilised mixed methods to conducta cross-sectional study

of 151 students who represent legal English undergraduates in the 45% and 46

courses at HLU Approximately 241 legal English undergraduates who haveteamed Legal English Translation and Interpretation Modules 1 and LegalEnglish Translation and Interpretation Modules 2 as compulsory subjects atHLU constituted the study population, whereas the researcher was, under timeand budget constraints, unable to gather information from the entire population,thus, using Slovin's formula as a stratified random sampling formula to select

„

SPSS v.25 and NVivo v.12 software was used to analyse and synchronise datafrom two questionnaire sources The researcher utilised findings from twosources to strengthen the accuracy and reliability of the research findings2.2, Research question restated

To orient oneself for studying, the following question should be clarified

to specify the difficulties of Legal English students in translating legal texts

(2) What characteristics of Legal English cause the difficulties intranslating legal texts for Legal English major students?

@) _ How would students majoring in Legal English evaluate whichcharacteristic affects them most?

G) What do they do to overcome the difficulties in translating legaltexts?

2.3 Participants

The participating students were selected from two courses in LegalEnglish major at HLU, namely K45 and K46, which have taken LegalTranslation and Interpreting modules 1 and 2 as the obligatory subjects TheK45 contained 113 undergraduates, and the K46 contained 128 undergraduates

In order to select samples from a vast population, the researcher used Slovin'sformula to find out the number of samples from each course Hence, let “N” bethe total population and the error margin “e” indicates the acceptableprobability of sampling error in selecting a small portion of the entirepopulation with e=25% (Altares etal, 2003, as cited in Isip, nd.) The samplesize "ni" can be found by the following formula

n=number of samples

TM= Te N=population size

£—margin of error

1s

‘The result demonstrated that 71 K45 Legal English undergraduates hadbeen selected out of 113, and 80 K46 Legal English major students had beenchosen out of 128, which totalised 151 participants Thirty people agreed to co-operate in semi-structured interviews after completing the survey questionnaire2.4, Research instrument

The researcher used a researcher-made questionnaire based oncharacteristics of Legal English that had been developed and suggested byformer scholars The survey questionnaire includes 21 statements, divided into

‘two groups of characteristics as lexical features group and syntactic featuresgroup, which are equal to each other and presented in the five-point Likert scale

to investigate leamers’ attitudes towards legal translation difficulties Inparallel with the implementation of the questionnaire, the 10 semi-structuredquestions were asked randomly in number as well as questions to 30 leamersand then students were asked to give only one answer for each question, Thequestionnaires were constructed intemally before they were sent to thesupervisor, who had expertise in legal English and translation for contentvalidation After the questionnaires were fine-tuned properly, the questionnaire

‘wasrun amonga group of 17 learners to validate their strengths and weaknesses,

‘The researcher retained the statements in proportion to the confidence level (a

= 0.87, fairly high, Cronbach, 1951) The final survey questionnaires weredivided into two groups of characteristics: the lexical features group and thesyntactic features group, For semi-structured interviews with students, 10interview questions for leamers were selected, Finally, the final versions wereagain sent back to the supervisor to examine and validate the liability

2.5 Procedures of data collection

After obtaining the necessary preparation and permission for researchinstruments, the study research was conducted via a printed surveyquestionnaire and then was sent randomly to the participants

re

‘The questionnaire provided concise instructions, explained the study'sobjectives and relevance, assured anonymity, and allowed informants todiscontinue participation The questionnaire was gathered within 90 minutes 0F

‘being handed out At the same time, the researcher does not hesitate to answerany questions related to the survey instantly The leamers who agreed toparticipate in the semi-structured interview demonstrated their answers inperson, which lasted for about fifteen minutes

‘After gathering two sources of the research instrument through astratified sampling technique (Lauren, 2023) the researcher implemented a datascreening procedure to obtain the desired sample size Lastly, the suitable data

‘was processed using Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS v.25 application forquestionnaires and interview transcripts

2.6 Data analysis

The data was collected, systemised, analysed and interpreted usingdescriptive statistics, which was used to superscript the 5-point LiKert scalestatements to find out the means and range of error relevant to the intervalscales suchas always or mostly inaccurate (1.0 — 1.80), usually inaccurate(1 81

~ 2.60), somewhat accurate (2.61 ~ 3.40), usually accurate (341 = 4.20), andalways or almost always accurate (4.21 —5.0) In order to test the disparity inlegal translation, ANOVA was used to verify the different perspectives ofrespondents Additionally, IBM SPSS, Microsoft Excel and NVivo V.12 wereemployed to ascertain the accountability of the qualitative data in the frequency

‘with which the perspectives of respondents were mentioned during the structured interviews

semi-2.7, Summary

In Chapter 2 of Part Il, the researcher specified the research design,research questions, participants’ profiles, data collection instrument, datacollection procedures and data analysis Collecting data through a

”

questionnaire was a reliable method for quantitative research, Statistical tools

were available for digitalising and analysing data collected using IBM SPSS

v.25 and v NVivo 12

To summarise, this chapter plays the role of grounding for the followingchapter to find out the result of this study, thus drawing some discussions,

CHAPTER 3.RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the study presents and discusses the data collectedthrough a questionnaire survey Additionally, the research thoroughly analysesthe findings in comparison to previous studies to generate multi-dimensionalinsights

3.1 Demographic information of the respondents

Table ¡ presents the demographic information of the participantsparticipating in the study In terms of gender, the majority of them are femaleundergraduates (0x 104; equal to 68.9%), and the rest include 47 male students,accounting for 31.1% When using stratified random sampling, the proportion

of K45 and K46 leamers in the sample is equal to that of the total population

of each course This means that K45 students make up 47% (= 71) of thesample, while K46 leamers make up 53% (1 = 80), Regarding their residence,Ieamers mostly come from urban areas (1 = 82), making up 54.3% Thesuccessive rank is 57 leamers (equal to 37.7%) living in urban areas, thesmallest proportion of the participation is only 12 leamers from mountainousareas, which comprises 7.9% of the sample population On taking the Englishleaming duration into account, undergraduates who have been acquiringEnglish for almost 20 years of their lives represent a much smaller proportionthan the other two criteria, which stands for 7.9% (1 = 12) Additionally, manystudents only leamed English for fewer than 15 years; particularly, 61respondents have leamt English from 10 to below 15 years, and 56 leamershave studied English for fewer than 10 years, which constituted 40.4% and37.1%, respectively When considering the part-time job relative to usingEnglish, 112 informants report not having part-time work requiring the use ofEnglish, and this number forms 74.2% of the totality of the participatingundergraduates; accordingly, only 39 of the legal English student respondents(comparable to 26.8%) claim to have part-time jobs curently For theinvestigation of the motivational level of participating in English courses, the

majority of the respondents (1 = 87, equal to 57.6%) feel motivated toward

leaming legal English On the contrary, there is a conceming number of

leamers who are a little motivated to take legal English courses, equivalent to27.8% of the respondents (1 = 42), while 22 informants seem highly motivated

to leam legal English

Working part-time

relative to usinglegal No 112 742English

Little motivated “ 178The level of motivation

towards legal English Motivated 151 87 516

courses.

Highly motivated kẻ 146

3.2, The result of difficulties related to the Lexical features group

Table 2 demonstrates hardships related to the lexical features of legalEnglish studied in HLU

Legal English major students at HLU often need help with translatinglegal texts from Vietnamese to English and vice versa One of the mainchallenges for them is the use of technical terminology, which often requiresarification (= 3.6, SD = 0.981) As glimpsed from the previous figure, itdenotes that the level of difficulty in translating legal texts varies among theJeamers according to the standard deviation Likewise, the result indicates thatsome respondents find it very difficult to translate ordinary words with specialmeanings (M= 3.51; SD = 1.107) The standard deviation figure emphasisesthat_not all the respondents share similar standpoints on this aspectFurthermore, the culture-specific characteristic of legal terms possiblyconstitutes a significant translation challenge (M = 373; SD = 0.976) Legalmetaphors and metonymies are considered the most difficult aspects oftranslating legal texts for these undergraduates, demonstrated by the meanscore of 3.9, which is considered pretty high and the highest among the charts(M=390, SD

the lower limit of “always accurate” Translating pronominal adverbs is

52; SD=0.855)

957) This issue has the highest mean and is asymptotic to

somehow found to bea challenge among the answerers (I=

By

In contrast, itis true that foreign words and Maxims borrowed from Latin orFrench origin are difficult for these students to understand and transtate (Ä/ —

376, SD = 1.209) Specifically, 364% of the total answers considerunderstanding and translating foreign words or Maxims borrowed from Latin

or French to be strongly difficult, which is the highest percentage among allcategories, thus showing that most informants find it highly challenging Inasimilar vein, the standard deviation illustrates that participants’ viewpointsdiffer Binomial expressions and parallel structures are regarded asa source 0Fdifficulty for undergraduates when translating legal texts (M = 3.55, SD =0.966), Similarly, legal abbreviations cause obstacles for student translators (M

= 3.54, SD= 1 025) Translating legal texts can be challenging for legal English

‘major students, primarily due to the use of doublets and triplets that convey asingle legal concept (M= 3.53, SD= 1.12) The informants probably confrontdifficulties in understanding archaic expressions and words, which arecommonly encountered in legal texts (M — 3 58, SD= 1.110) For instance, the

‘word "hereinafter" can be confusing because the translator may not be able todefine the person or thing referred to in the text The high standard deviation inthis statement suggests that many people find archaic words to be obstacles (

=4, Freq = 45, same as 29 8%, and M =

while others consider them neutral (I= 3, Frec

5, Freq = 39, equivalent to 36%),

= 48; representing for 31.8%)Phrasal verbs in legal textsare blamed fora cause of trouble for undergraduates,

as they are often used ina quasi-techmical sense (I= 3.49, SD= 1.070), on thecontrary, phrasal verbs are thought to be the least problem due to the lowest

‘mean score Additionally, unfamiliar pro-forms in legal texts can createsignificant challenges for translators (M = 3.72; SD= 1 048)

In general, legal English major students genuinely think the lexicalfeatures of legal English cause hardships in translation Table 2 reveals thatlegal English major undergraduates at HLU consider lexical features of legalEnglish usually difficult to translate The result obtained isin harmony with the

3

findings of the prior study (Camelia, 2014), which emphasises the hardships oflexical features in translating legal texts

Above all, legal metaphors and metonymies are considered the mostchallenging lexical difficulties for legal English undergraduates During thesurvey phase, numerous leamers insisted on having difficulty in recognisinglegal metaphors and metonymies during the translation process, thus leading to

‘wrong translations In contrast, the phrasal verb in a quasi-technical sense isconsidered the least difficult lexical feature of legal translation It can be easilyunderstood for the simple reason that phrasal verbs can be either looked up inthe dictionary or searched online to find meaning and methods ofusage Some

of the statements are strongly agreed upon by most of the participants, whilenota small number of respondents have different perspectives, such as foreignwords borrowed from Latin or French, It is concluded that the level oflinguistics Imowledge among respondents is significantly different On theother hand, HLU legal English undergraduates encounter hardships translatinglegal texts due to archaic language, namely “hereinafter” and "hereto*, and thetranslation of doublets and triplets This is supported by the finding of Atari'sstudy (2005) that archaic words confuse legal word expressions, while legalstudent translators often confront difficulties in understanding and translatingdoublets and triplets Withdrawal through this study, translating legal textsseems to be challenging for HLU translation leamers due to culture-specificterms This difficulty has been reinforced by previous studies (¢g., Elmahdi,

2016, El-Sadik, 2018, Frade, 2015, Alshaikh, 2022) These researchersemphasise the importance of cultural Inowledge when translating legal textsFurthermore, the results conclusively show that legal English translation1eamers have problems with legal concepts and abbreviations while translatinglegal text This finding is somewhat backed by Alshaikh (2022) Lastly,ordinary words with special meanings, pronominal adverbs, and unfamiliar