Legal translation is the translation of language used in legal settings and for legal purposes. Legal translation may also imply that it is a specific type of translation only used in law, which is not always the case. As law is a culture-dependent subject field, legal translation is not necessarily linguistically transparent. Intransparency in translation can be avoided somewhat by use of Latin legal terminology, where possible, but in non-western languages debates are centered on the origins and precedents of specific terms, such as in the use of particular Chinese characters in Japanese legal discussions. Intransparency can lead to expensive misunderstandings in terms of a contract, for example, resulting in avoidable lawsuits. Legal translation is thus usually done by specialized law translators. Conflicts over the legal impact of a translation can be avoided by indicating that the text is "authentic" i.e. legally operative on its own terms or instead is merely a "convenience translation", which itself is not legally operative. Courts only apply authentic texts and do not rely on "convenience" translations in adjudicating rights and duties of litigants.
Translation issues
The usage of transcription in the context of linguistic discussions has been controversial. Typically, two kinds of linguistic records are considered to be scientifically relevant. First, linguistic records of general acoustic features, and secondly, records that only focuses on the distinctive phonemes of a language. While transcriptions are not entirely illegitimate, transcriptions without enough detailed commentary regarding any linguistic features used has a great chance of the content being misinterpreted. An example that highlights this complication with transcription is displaying dialect in writing. The fundamental problem with this situation is that the transcribed product is not simply a spoken language in its written form, but a language the transcriber is responsible for writing down and a language that has been transcribed by someone other than the speaker, no matter the level of understanding the transcriber has for the spoken language. It is important to note that any transcription is an interpretation of the speech no matter how detailed it is, and will be selective in what it includes or leave out. Because of this reason, it is important to strategically choose the form of transcription in order to properly represent the spoken language in a written form. Different approaches to translation should not be confused with different approaches to translation theory. The former are the standards used by translators in their trade while the latter are just different paradigms used in developing translation theory. Few jurists are familiar with terms of translation theory. They may ask interpreters and translators to provide translation. They often view this term as a clear standard of quality that they desire in TT. However, verbatim translation usually is undesirable due to different grammar structures as well as different legal terms or rules in different legal systems. When it comes to translating, it can be difficult to find the correct words to translate the same information given because not all words that are translated can have the same meaning. There are many cultures around the world that the legal translation has to be exact. It is important that Legal Translators be able to interpret one word from a given language to another while still being able to maintain the same impact and meaning of the legal word.
Legal translators often consult specialized bilingual or polyglot law dictionaries. Care should be taken, as some bilingual law dictionaries are of poor quality and their use may lead to mistranslation. Bilingual legal dictionaries tend to largely be a source of reference for interpretation, rather than a source of literal equivalent translations of legal terminology. Translating legal text from one language to another becomes a challenge for legal experts because there is a level of freedom to translating texts that retain meaning and not necessarily maintaining equivalent semantic structure. There is also a debate between experts to either restrict the legal language to the target text for professional use or to broaden legal language for the use and comprehension of the public, specifically in societies with bilingual law system.
