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

The results of the study reveal that the main difficulties leamers face in translating legal texts are related to the lexicalcharacteristics of legal English The study recommends that mo

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

MINISTRY OF JUSTICE MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

LE THỊ HA LINH

STUDENT DECLARATION

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

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 work

right 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 my

supervisor, 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 dissertation.Iam 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, and

encouragement 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 Their unwavering belief in me has been the dnving force behind my success, andIam forever grateful for their love and guidance

Last but certainly not least, I would like to thank my friends andclassmates, who have beena source of inspiration and motivation throughout

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

me, and J am thankful for their unwavering beliefin 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 to have comprehensive knowledge of different legal jurisdictions Although the characteristics of legal English pose significant obstacles in understanding foreign legal texts, translation plays a crucial role in helping legal professionals 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 examining

the 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 main difficulties 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 learning

From this perspective, they should be promoted to use information

technology, especially utilising Internet resources for broadening theirknowledge about not only laws but also legal English to satisfy career

expectations

1.4 Previous studies 14

1.5 Summary 16

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGY 17

2.1 Research design 172.2 Research question restated 18

equivalent meaning in Vietnamese legal terms when

translating legal texts

3.5.2 The analysis of solutions to overcome the difficulties of 35

ordinary words with special meanings when translatinglegal texts

3.5.3 The analysis of solutions to deal with the use of doublets 36

and triplets conveying a single legal concept whentranslating legal texts

3.5.4 The analysis of solutions to translate archaic expressions 37

4.3 Limitations and suggestions for further research 50

4.3.1 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 23

Table 2 Lexical-related difficulties 37

able 11 Solutions to deal vath

metonymies when translating legal texts

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 WWordsiMaams 44borrowing 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

Vietnam : the Socialist Republic of Vietnam C500 : People's Security Academy

e : Margin of error

EAP : English for Academic Purposes

MOET : Ministry of Education and Training

n : Number of samples

N : Population size

NEU : National Economic University

sD : Standard Deviation

SL Source language

Courses 45 :K45

Courses 46 :K46

PART I INTRODUCTION

1 Rationale of the study

Legal regulation of society includes using language to mediate nationaland international social relations in law In the era of globalisation,international 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 arerequired tohave a deep understanding English legalese is known for its professionalism(Matsyupa et al., 2022, pp 64-66) and complexity, thus making it hard tounderstand its terms Since language is the only means to develop legal

high-concepts, translation is believed to be focal in the modem world, especially for

legal professionals Furthermore, translation can help narrow the differences inthe field of economic, social, and technological progress between developedand developing countnes by providing access to legal concepts and

terminology that may be unfamiliar to legal professionals in certain regions

Not only do developing nations depend on translation to fill the gap with otherdeveloped countries, butit also affords access to a 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 knowiedge presented in different languages isessential, and translation playsa crucial roleinaccomplishing it 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)

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

on teaching and learning English for particular purposes, which is known as English for Specific Purposes (ESP) rather than general English (GE) or English for Academic Purposes (EAP) (Vu & Tran, 2023) Learning ESP is

becoming increasingly necessary in today's worid as the demand for specialised language skills continues growing ESP is designed to cater to 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 their

field of study As a result, the necessity of leaming ESP must be considered.Implemented in the legal field, likewise, ESP legal English, known as legal

English, is necessary in today’s world In this regard, in the joumey of pursuinglegal professions in the era of globalisation, legal English is needed to

understand legal terminologies in native English countnes and multilateral

intemational 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 learning legal English is the complexity ofitsterminology and concepts (Nhac, 2022) Legal professionals need to have adeep understanding of legal English to moderate the language and interpret themeaning of legal texts accurately Moreover, legal English still includes archaicand 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 of languages 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 learn 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 severallegal language problems closely resembling the distinctive charactenstics 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 terminology from countries

where English is spoken as the mother tongue, such as the United Kingdom(UK) or the United States of America (USA) Nevertheless, the research can be

seenasa framework-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 conducting a study ontranslating legal texts They conclude that significant challenges in the accurate

translation of legal terminology from English to Vietnamese include 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 with other foreign studies, the scope of the above research does notfocus on any subject, thus, these problems are considered general rather than

non-specific for legal English undergraduates As a general rule, after analysing some 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-

2024 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 overcome

the obstacles

2.2 Objectives of the study

- To conduct 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 with translating legal texts?

(2) Which proposals are, put»-forward.-to help» legal» English, major

students 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 2023-2024

academic year

5 Significances of the study

This research would contribute to overcoming the difficulties of Legal

English translation specifically applied to legal English students at HLU

6 Methodology of the study

The research used the mixed-methods approach to examine the hardships

in translating legal texts possibly confronted with legal English major

undergraduates 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 of

English legalese, Latin terminology, and equivalence in lexical

meanings.

8 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 followingsections:

Chapter 1 Literature review provides some theoretical background

and 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 oflegal 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 using it to formulate the theoretical framework of thisresearch.

11 Translation

As aforementioned, translation in the modem world is crucial; thereby,several definitions of translation have been built by different scholars

Catford (1965, p 1) states that translation is the act of replacing texts

from one language to another, which requires a general linguistic theory The

“general linguistic theory” here can be understood as Halliday’s systemicfunctional linguistics (Halliday & Webster, 2009) Accordingly, the scope ofCatford’s definition refers to the form of language expressed in wmitten or

printed characters instead of spoken language

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

he considers translation to be a scientific discipline Furthermore, he points outthat “The scientific description 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 necessanlyanother written or verbal language but any valid type of language

Conceming the Wester translation scholars of the linguistic group,

besides Catford and Nida, Newmark (1988, 2001) is the theorist who must be

noticed He states “Often, though not by any means always, rendering a text inanother language as intended by the author is translation.” (p 5) For that wide-scope definition, it can be acknowledged that there are no absolute translationsfor Newmark, and everything is conditioned

Apart from the scholars who have had a significant impact on translation studies and in the linguistics field, there have obviously been researchers conducting 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 ina different language In otherterms, translation’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 from thesource language (SL) English to the target language (TL) Vietnamese

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

p 8) This understanding is used nationwide in Vietnam, whilelegal documentsare understood to be issued by, for the most part, the goverment or,

specifically, the authonty'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

' Hanoi Law University (20214) Developing Legal Dociment Corase Book (Giáo trinhXéy duong Vion bản pháp luật) Hà Nội: NXB Công An Nhân Din

There are hardly any research studies available on the definition of legal texts, thereby, under the context of legal translation study, the researcher subjectively reckons in this study that the legal texts or so-calied legaldocuments include foreign legal normative documents, treaties and other legalSources which are written in English.

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

competence, order, and procedures and written 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, it is not the primary subject of legal translation due

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

(2) 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)(@)) In the global integrationera, the more intemational agreements have been signed, the more they need to

be aware Meanwhile, not all of them are written in Vietnamese, while English

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

p 89); hence, translation is needed

(3) Other iegai sources include but are not limited to legal contracts,

verdicts, cases of law, and texts containing legal terms other than thosementioned earlier, which are written in English While this type of legal texts

Official anguagts }tps/Srtrty um org/enJour-vwork/official- languages

4 Hanoi Law University (20210) international Lew Corase Book [Gido tinh Luật Quéc rếJ Hà Nội: NXB

Công An Nhân Dân,

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

d'Administration) After Vietnam's victory against French and American

imperialism, the country became unified and independent, and the legal system

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 onmerging the Faculty of Law of Hanoi University and Vietnam Legal StudiesCollege, pursuant to Decision No 405/CP dated November 10%, 19799, of theGovemment 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'sdecision No 1156/QD-TTg dated on September 30, 20225 After more than 45years of development, Vietnam has witnessed a rapid growth in the number of

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law 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(ALU) and Ho Chi Minh City University of Law (ULAW)

(2) 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 ofVietnam, 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

(3) Law faculties belonging to multidisciplinary universities Forexample, the Faculty of Law of Trade Union University (TUU), the Faculty ofLaw of National Economic University (NEU) and the Faculty of Law of Hanoi

Open 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 Vietnam Court Academy (VCA), and the HanoiProcuratorate University (HPU) Although these establishments provide

training to officials in the State agency system, some programs grant bachelor'sdegrees in law to 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 new in 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 knowledge to be able to use it tocommunicate and work ina legal field working environment, meeting the needs

of society.

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

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

in case law, law report 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 thatlegal English is the language used in the Anglo-American common law system

It is considered the common language for intemational commercial and legal

transactions This language has spread to Outer and Expanding Circle countriesdue to the influence of British 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 countnes Sharing the resemblance, when researching the

characteristics and features of legal English vocabulary, Veretina-Chiriac(2012) defines legal English as one of the legal languages, which is the

language of English common law in England, America, and other speaking countries (pp 103-107)

English-After discussing some definitions, the researcher draws out her definition

of legal English for this research: “Legal English is apart ofthe legal language,which can be defined as the specific language oƒiaw used in the legal contextand created by English-speaking countries” Accordingly, legal English

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

(Veretina-e L(Veretina-exical f(Veretina-eatur(Veretina-es group:

(1) Archaisms In the Legal context, Archaic words are used frequently, compared with other contexts; on the contrary, ina normal context,Archaic hardly ever be used, thus making it obscure over time (Stanojevic,

2011, pp 65-72) For instance, inter alia, hereof, and whereof (and furtherderivative, including -at -in, -affer, - before, -with -by - above, -on, - upon)

(2) Technicai 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, e g., bailand tort (Haigh, 2004, xvi) The reason for such characteristic is that legalEnglish is derived from French and Latin and is treated as a word with specificmeanings only within the legal context (Stanojevic, 2011)

(3) Doublets and tripiets Synonym pairs and strings can be classifiedinto doublets and triplets, meaning these pairs normally have the same meaningand can be used either way; however, in legal English, using doublets andtriplets is considered a custom of legal communities For example, it includesact and deed terms and conditions, promise, agree and covenant While thesewere initially done for completeness (Mykhailova, 2012), using two or morewords that convey the same meaning conceptually is redundant nowadaysbecause it does little 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 mfo a contract andput down deposits

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

meaning Legal English specifically contains pairs of words that reciprocallymatch 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 iength In legal contexts, sentences often have peculiarstructures and are complex, which causes difficulties in understanding and

translating in practice

(7) Nominalisation A nominalisation is changing verbs into nouns,like in such legal texts For example, in normal texts, itis said that “to consider“while in legal texts, it is written in the form of “to give consideration”

(Stanojevic, 201 1)

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

it is common for lawyers to use passive voice or peculiar pronouns to reduce

such identity while emphasising actions (Williams, 2004, p 114)

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 researchpopulation The findings of Alshaikh’s research showed that the major challenges Saudi translation undergraduates come across when translating legal contracts include binominal expressions and parallel structure, sentencestructure, multiple negatives, and text layout (Alshaikh, 2022) To eliminate thedifficulties, the author stated that Saudi learners use computer-assistedtranslation (CAT) and Google Translation as technology translation tools and

parallel texts 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 correctequivalent 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 legallanguage 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 literaltranslation Furthermore, choosing the inappropriate meanings of the

polysemous words, which processed various meanings (Karjo, 2016) and the

inability 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 thirtyleamers from the English Department at Bina Nusantara University whoentered Business and Legal translation as an obligate in their sixth term

A number of research studies have been conducted in Vietnam to investigate the challenges of translating legal documents, which are extremely limited 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

As a whole, this chapter has given an overview of the previous studiesthat have examined the challenges related to translating legal 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 thisresearch 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 reviews

the previous studies and discusses the problems of translating legal texts

Taking this chapter as a background, the researcher draws attention to

the most important chapter in this part by presenting the methodology toexamine the obstacle of translating the legal texts of Legal English, major

undergraduates at HLU

CHAPTER 2 METHODOLOGYThe research methods and techniques used in this chapter are present forthe data collection The chapter presents the research design, restates researchquestions, shares participant information, and serves as the research roadmap This is 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 conduct a 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 havelearned 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

a sample of 151 respondents

For effectiveness, the printed questionnaire was personally handed to

K45 answerers in one working week In contrast, due to the four compulsory

weeks of National Defense and Security Education for K46 leamers at NationalDefense and Security Education Centre I (from September 5 to September 30,2023), the questionnaire was implemented in both ways: active Google formlink and printed survey, which was mailed to the participants’ addresses within

the period three weeks and then personally handed out in their first dayretuming campus The semi-structured interviews were conducted face-to-faceand telegram interviews with the 30 student informants with the permission to take note of the interviews to transcribe the response for this research Lastly, Microsoft Excel was employed to digitalise the hand-wnitten data, and the IBM

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

2.2 Research question restated

To orient oneself for studying the following question should be clanfied

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

(1) = What- characteristics, of Legal, English» cause the: difficulties intranslating legal texts for Legal English major students?

(2) How would students majoring in Legal English evaluate whichcharacteristic affects them most?

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

2.3 Participants

The participating students were selected from two courses in Legal

English major at HLU, namely K45 and K46, which have taken Legal

Translation and Interpreting modules | and 2 as the obligatory subjects The

K45 contained 113 undergraduates, and the K46 contained 128 undergraduates

In order to select samples froma vast population, the researcher used Slovin’sformula to find out the number of samples from each course Hence, let “N” be

the total population and the error margin “e” indicates the acceptable

probability of sampling error in selecting a small portion of the entire

population with e =+5% (Altares et.al., 2003, as cited in Isip, n.d.) The samplesize “n” can be found by the following formula:

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 questionnaire.2.4 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 intotwo 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

‘was tun among a 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 research instruments, the study research was conducted via a printed survey questionnaire and then was sent randomly to the participants.

The questionnaire provided concise instructions, explained the study's objectives and relevance, assured anonymity, and allowed informants todiscontinue participation The questionnaire was gathered within 90 minutes ofbeing 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 data

screening procedure to obtain the desired sample size Lastly, the suitable datawas processed using Microsoft Excel and IBM SPSS v25 application forquestionnaires and interview transcripts

respondents Additionally, IBM SPSS, Microsoft Excel and NVivo V.12 were

employed to ascertain the accountability of the qualitative data in the frequencywith which the perspectives of respondents were mentioned during the semi-structured interviews.

2.7 Summary

In Chapter 2 of Part II, 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 toolswere available for digitalising and analysing data collected using IBM SPSSv.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 analyses the findings in companson to previous studies to generate multi-dimensional insights.

3.1 Demographic information of the respondents

Table -1 presents -the- demographic» information.of the» participantsparticipating in the study In terms of gender, the majonty of them are femaleundergraduates (1 = 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% (7 =71) of thesample, while K46 leamers make up 53% (7 = 80) Regarding their residence,

leamers mostly come from urban areas (n = 82), making up 54.3% The

successive 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 Englishlearning duration into account, undergraduates who have been acquiringEnglish for almost 20 years of their lives represent a much smaller proportionthan the other two critena, which stands for 7.9% (z = 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 currently For theinvestigation of the motivational level of participating in English courses, the

majority of the respondents (¡ = 87, equal to 57.6%) feel motivated toward learning legal English On the contrary, there is a conceming number of learners who are a little motivated to take legal English courses, equivalent to 27.8% of the respondents (7 = 42), while 22 informants seem highly motivated

to leam legal English Table 1 Profiles of the respondents invoived in the study

Working part-time

relative to using legal No 112 74.2English

Little motivated 42 27.8The level of motivation

towards legal English § Motivated 151 87 57.6

courses,

Highly motivated 22 14.6

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 HƯU

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 requiresclarification (Af = 3.6, SD = 0.981) As glimpsed from the previous figure, itdenotes that the level of difficulty in translating legal texts varies among theleamers according to the standard deviation Likewise, the result indicates thatsome respondents find it very difficult to translate ordinary words with specialmeanings (Mf = 3.51; SD = 1.107) The standard deviation figure emphasisesthat not all the respondents share similar standpoints on this aspect.Furthermore, the culture-specific characteristic of legal terms possiblyconstitutes a significant translation challenge (M⁄ = 3.73, 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 = 3.90; SD = 0.957) This issue has the highest mean and is asymptotic tothe lower limit of “always accurate” Translating pronominal adverbs issomehow found to bea challenge among the answerers (4= 3.52; SD=0.855),

In contrast, it is true that foreign words and Maxims borrowed from Latin orFrench ongin are difficult for these students to understand and translate (M4 =3.76; SD = 1.209) Specifically, 36.4% 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' viewpoints differ Binomial expressions and parallel structures are regarded as a source of difficulty for undergraduates when translating legal texts (Af = 3.55, SD =0.966) Similarly, legal abbreviations cause obstacles for student translators (Mf

= 3.54, SD= 1.025) Translating legal texts can be challenging for legal Englishmajor students, primarily due to the use of doublets and triplets that convey asingle legal concept (= 3.53; SD= 1.012) The informants probably confrontdifficulties in understanding archaic expressions and words, which are

commonly encountered in legal texts (4= 3.58; SD = 1.110) For instance, the

word "hereinafter" can be confusing because the translator may not be able to

define 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 (MZ

=4, Freq = 45, same as 29.8%, and M= 5, Freg = 39, equivalent to 36%),while others consider them neutral (4= 3, Freq = 48; representing for 31.8%).Phrasal verbs in legal texts are blamed for a cause of trouble for undergraduates,

as they are often used ina quasi-techmical sense (A¢= 3.49, SD = 1.070) on the contrary, phrasal verbs are thought to be the least problem due to the lowestmean 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 is in harmony with the

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

Above all, legal metaphors and metonymies are considered the most challenging lexical difficulties for legal English undergraduates Dunng the survey phase, numerous leamers insisted on having difficulty in recognisinglegal metaphors and metonymies during the translation process, thus leading towrong translations In contrast, the phrasal verb in a quasi-technical sense isconsidered the least difficult lexical feature of legal translation It can be easily

understood 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 knowledge 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 (e.g., Elmahdi,

2016; El-Sadik, 2018; Frade, 2015, Alshaikh, 2022) These researchersemphasise the importance of cultural knowledge when translating legal texts.Furthermore, the results conclusively show that legal English translationleamers 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