The ATA Legal Translation Conference, ‘Raising the Bar’, Jersey City, NJ, May 2-4, 2003, was the second of what is planned to be a number of specialized conferences (the first one was on finance). The American Translators’ Association puts on a huge annual conference too (something the BDÜ in Germany doesn’t manage), so this was quite an achievement. The details of the programme are still on the ATA website, with speakers’ biographies and exhibitors and sponsors. This was all done to invite booking, so it may disappear. The organizers were Marian S. Greenfield, Teresa Kelly and Mary David, and Tom West, who is the ATA President and also a legal translator and former attorney (his company is Intermark Language Services in Atlanta, Georgia), had some hand in it too. It really all went off very well. I can’t describe it in detail here. There were language-neutral sessions, and sessions relating to French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian. By my count there were at least 12 speakers for Spanish, 3 each for Portuguese and German and 2 each for French and Russian. I was talking to Joe McClinton, who also presented in German, when we went out for a speakers’ dinner the evening before the conference, and merely noted that the rest of our table seemed to be Argentinians. But it would have been useful to talk to or listen to some of these speakers from other language specializations.
There must have been a couple of hundred people there (‘attendees’, as the Americans call them), but German is a minority language so I had from 20 to 30 people, I think, and we were able to have a conversation throughout. The audiences were very friendly and keen to hear anything. German presentations were on translating German criminal law into English (me), German tax and social insurance law (Joe McClinton), Recurring problems in German>English legal translation (me again), Swiss Legal German (Tom West), and translating German contracts (Joe again, but I missed this because I had to get my plane). There was an excellent reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres (or hors d’oeurves as they spelt it in the programme) by CLS Communication, Inc., a translation company, and some good bookstands.
I took away from the conference sessions mainly a collection of questions to pursue further. Swiss legal German always presents a challenge. Some regret was expressed that the new edition of Romain’s German-English law dictionary promises Austrian and Swiss legal terminology but seems to contain none (Romain/Byrd/Thielecke, Wörterbuch der Rechts- und Wirtschaftssprache / Dictionary of Legal and Commercial Terms DE>EN, ISBN 3 406 48068 3). I am very tempted to prepare a glossary of Swiss legal terms, but what with 26 cantons, each a separate jurisdiction, and what is the whole population? one wonders if it’s worth the effort. I think I will collect a list of 20 Swiss German legal terms and prepare a table showing how few reference works contain them. There’s a Swiss German legal dictionary, but it’s odd (Metzger, Schweizerisches juristisches Wörterbuch, ISBN 3 258 05191 7). For one thing, it often explains a term simply by giving the relevant paragraph of the Civil Code (which is better than nothing, of course), and it also contains non-legal terms. And some of its terms are not specifically Swiss, which is also OK, I suppose. It is just less use than it looks. The really good reference is the small Duden Wie sagt man in der Schweiz? Wörterbuch der schweizerischen Besonderheiten, ISBN 3 411 04131 5, which actually contains quite a few legal terms. Tom mainly discussed diverging corporate terminology, but he also had a list of types of legal fees taken from a judgment – the only way to research the meaning of these seems to be a Google search. He also talked about books and web sources.
To be continued…

The ATA Legal Translation Conference, ‘Raising the Bar’, Jersey City, NJ, May 2-4, 2003, was the second of what is planned to be a number of specialized conferences (the first one was on finance). The American Translators’ Association puts on a huge annual conference too (something the BDÜ in Germany doesn’t manage), so this was quite an achievement. The details of the programme are still on the ATA website, with speakers’ biographies and exhibitors and sponsors. This was all done to invite booking, so it may disappear. The organizers were Marian S. Greenfield, Teresa Kelly and Mary David, and Tom West, who is the ATA President and also a legal translator and former attorney (his company is Intermark Language Services in Atlanta, Georgia), had some hand in it too. It really all went off very well. I can’t describe it in detail here. There were language-neutral sessions, and sessions relating to French, Spanish, German, Portuguese and Russian. By my count there were at least 12 speakers for Spanish, 3 each for Portuguese and German and 2 each for French and Russian. I was talking to Joe McClinton, who also presented in German, when we went out for a speakers’ dinner the evening before the conference, and merely noted that the rest of our table seemed to be Argentinians. But it would have been useful to talk to or listen to some of these speakers from other language specializations.
There must have been a couple of hundred people there (‘attendees’, as the Americans call them), but German is a minority language so I had from 20 to 30 people, I think, and we were able to have a conversation throughout. The audiences were very friendly and keen to hear anything. German presentations were on translating German criminal law into English (me), German tax and social insurance law (Joe McClinton), Recurring problems in German>English legal translation (me again), Swiss Legal German (Tom West), and translating German contracts (Joe again, but I missed this because I had to get my plane). There was an excellent reception with complimentary hors d’oeuvres (or hors d’oeurves as they spelt it in the programme) by CLS Communication, Inc., a translation company, and some good bookstands.
I took away from the conference sessions mainly a collection of questions to pursue further. Swiss legal German always presents a challenge. Some regret was expressed that the new edition of Romain’s German-English law dictionary promises Austrian and Swiss legal terminology but seems to contain none (Romain/Byrd/Thielecke, Wörterbuch der Rechts- und Wirtschaftssprache / Dictionary of Legal and Commercial Terms DE>EN, ISBN 3 406 48068 3). I am very tempted to prepare a glossary of Swiss legal terms, but what with 26 cantons, each a separate jurisdiction, and what is the whole population? one wonders if it’s worth the effort. I think I will collect a list of 20 Swiss German legal terms and prepare a table showing how few reference works contain them. There’s a Swiss German legal dictionary, but it’s odd (Metzger, Schweizerisches juristisches Wörterbuch, ISBN 3 258 05191 7). For one thing, it often explains a term simply by giving the relevant paragraph of the Civil Code (which is better than nothing, of course), and it also contains non-legal terms. And some of its terms are not specifically Swiss, which is also OK, I suppose. It is just less use than it looks. The really good reference is the small Duden Wie sagt man in der Schweiz? Wörterbuch der schweizerischen Besonderheiten, ISBN 3 411 04131 5, which actually contains quite a few legal terms. Tom mainly discussed diverging corporate terminology, but he also had a list of types of legal fees taken from a judgment – the only way to research the meaning of these seems to be a Google search. He also talked about books and web sources.
To be continued…

Looking at the reaction to the court dress story in The Volokh Conspiracy, I remembered the court dress I find most ridiculous of all – that of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. It looks to me as if it was designed in the 1960s – I haven’t checked; the headgear somehow reminds me of the spaceship in 2001.
Eugene Volokh then showed the picture (I had hesitated to show a picture from Der Spiegel), and he has another of the Supreme Court of Canada, added to the same entry.

Looking at the reaction to the court dress story in The Volokh Conspiracy, I remembered the court dress I find most ridiculous of all – that of the Federal Constitutional Court in Germany. It looks to me as if it was designed in the 1960s – I haven’t checked; the headgear somehow reminds me of the spaceship in 2001.
Eugene Volokh then showed the picture (I had hesitated to show a picture from Der Spiegel), and he has another of the Supreme Court of Canada, added to the same entry.

The Institute of Global Law at University College (news page here) seems to be the second most useful British university website for German law (after the German Law Archive, partly run by the same people), I have had the impression. I was reminded when I was researching Basil Markesinis.

Since this weblog is about legal translation, I hope it doesn’t seem rude to comment on one of the translations on the site. Time doesn’t allow more. I do not intend to discuss bad translations and useless books here – it would be a waste of space. These translations are good and convey the original German. The Bundesverfassungsgericht ones are rather heavy going, but that seems to be the effect of the original judgments.

Just by way of example, I am looking at the translation of the Road Traffic Act, (Straßenverkehrsgesetz: the sections relating to damages), which I imagine is not one of the newest. It seems to be dated 1978, judging from the URL. Unfortunately the header does not give the date but merely ‘as amended’. The translator’s name is not given, so it can’t influence me.

This seems to be U.S. English, but written by a German: the use of § is no problem in the U.S., where it is also used for sections, except at the beginning of a sentence. The Germans call it a Paragraph, but English speakers call it a section symbol. In Britain it is more usual to translate German legislation as ‘Section 7 subsection 1’, or ‘Section 7 (1)’. I wouldn’t really mind the § symbol in British English, but it is said not to be recognized in general use. – Other evidence of U.S. origin: kilometers, para. (instead of subsection).

I think it’s also U.S. lawyers’ usage to write ‘analogous’ or ‘by way of analogy’ where the British would write ‘mutatis mutandis’ (§ 13 (2)). I quite like ‘analogous’, would prefer ‘by analogy’ to ‘by way of analogy’ (‘By way of analogy, let me tell you a story…’) and am less happy with ‘accordingly’ (§ 7 (3), sentence no longer in the current StVG, and elsewhere (§ 18 (2): ‘findet entsprechende Anwendung’). I think ‘accordingly’ is translatorese but am willing to accept correction.

Then again, ‘contributory negligence’ sounds more British, since I think in the U.S.A. it has retained its common-law all-or-nothing meaning, and perhaps ‘comparative negligence’ would be used here.

It would seem more natural in English to use ‘shall’ rather than the present tense (e.g. § 7 (1) ‘is obliged to compensate’).

I wonder what the original of § 7 (2) was – was it ‘höhere Gewalt’? I only have the 1999 amendment of the Act here. It has a very long paragraph which is not quite the definition of force majeure.

§7 (3) The owner / keeper remains liable if the use of the motor vehicle was ‘facilitated’ by his negligence – should be ‘made possible’, not ‘made easier’.

In § 9, I would prefer the negligence of one person to be treated as ‘equal to’ the negligence of the other, rather than ‘equivalent’, which I find unclear at a first reading.

I think this is enough to give a general idea to anyone reading this of the nature of legal translation. It is rare to translate a complete statute, and that should really be left to teams with time and financial support for thorough research, but bits of statutes often need translating.

At all events, this is a clearly written translation with the appropriate level of language – not too formal and not too informal, with largely appropriate terminology.
One final point: I noticed the use of the word ‘laches’ in the title of §15. That really seems unnecessary. Since laches is a term in equity, I would be disinclined to use it in translation at all, and even if its meaning were wider, it is so unfamiliar to the person on the Clapham omnibus (quote from a card at the Hyatt Regency: ‘Have a great day – Your bellperson’) that I would ban it as too far from plain English. (I discovered in Jersey City that Americans pronounce it ‘latches’, whereas the British pronunciation is ‘layches’ – Garner confirms in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, ISBN 0 19 507769 5) – the amazon.com link allows you to see some pages (‘Look inside’).

The Institute of Global Law at University College (news page here) seems to be the second most useful British university website for German law (after the German Law Archive, partly run by the same people), I have had the impression. I was reminded when I was researching Basil Markesinis.

Since this weblog is about legal translation, I hope it doesn’t seem rude to comment on one of the translations on the site. Time doesn’t allow more. I do not intend to discuss bad translations and useless books here – it would be a waste of space. These translations are good and convey the original German. The Bundesverfassungsgericht ones are rather heavy going, but that seems to be the effect of the original judgments.

Just by way of example, I am looking at the translation of the Road Traffic Act, (Straßenverkehrsgesetz: the sections relating to damages), which I imagine is not one of the newest. It seems to be dated 1978, judging from the URL. Unfortunately the header does not give the date but merely ‘as amended’. The translator’s name is not given, so it can’t influence me.

This seems to be U.S. English, but written by a German: the use of § is no problem in the U.S., where it is also used for sections, except at the beginning of a sentence. The Germans call it a Paragraph, but English speakers call it a section symbol. In Britain it is more usual to translate German legislation as ‘Section 7 subsection 1’, or ‘Section 7 (1)’. I wouldn’t really mind the § symbol in British English, but it is said not to be recognized in general use. – Other evidence of U.S. origin: kilometers, para. (instead of subsection).

I think it’s also U.S. lawyers’ usage to write ‘analogous’ or ‘by way of analogy’ where the British would write ‘mutatis mutandis’ (§ 13 (2)). I quite like ‘analogous’, would prefer ‘by analogy’ to ‘by way of analogy’ (‘By way of analogy, let me tell you a story…’) and am less happy with ‘accordingly’ (§ 7 (3), sentence no longer in the current StVG, and elsewhere (§ 18 (2): ‘findet entsprechende Anwendung’). I think ‘accordingly’ is translatorese but am willing to accept correction.

Then again, ‘contributory negligence’ sounds more British, since I think in the U.S.A. it has retained its common-law all-or-nothing meaning, and perhaps ‘comparative negligence’ would be used here.

It would seem more natural in English to use ‘shall’ rather than the present tense (e.g. § 7 (1) ‘is obliged to compensate’).

I wonder what the original of § 7 (2) was – was it ‘höhere Gewalt’? I only have the 1999 amendment of the Act here. It has a very long paragraph which is not quite the definition of force majeure.

§7 (3) The owner / keeper remains liable if the use of the motor vehicle was ‘facilitated’ by his negligence – should be ‘made possible’, not ‘made easier’.

In § 9, I would prefer the negligence of one person to be treated as ‘equal to’ the negligence of the other, rather than ‘equivalent’, which I find unclear at a first reading.

I think this is enough to give a general idea to anyone reading this of the nature of legal translation. It is rare to translate a complete statute, and that should really be left to teams with time and financial support for thorough research, but bits of statutes often need translating.

At all events, this is a clearly written translation with the appropriate level of language – not too formal and not too informal, with largely appropriate terminology.
One final point: I noticed the use of the word ‘laches’ in the title of §15. That really seems unnecessary. Since laches is a term in equity, I would be disinclined to use it in translation at all, and even if its meaning were wider, it is so unfamiliar to the person on the Clapham omnibus (quote from a card at the Hyatt Regency: ‘Have a great day – Your bellperson’) that I would ban it as too far from plain English. (I discovered in Jersey City that Americans pronounce it ‘latches’, whereas the British pronunciation is ‘layches’ – Garner confirms in A Dictionary of Modern Legal Usage, ISBN 0 19 507769 5) – the amazon.com link allows you to see some pages (‘Look inside’).