The Application of Comparative Law Methods in the Legal Translation Process

A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

This paper aims to provide an overview of contemporary comparative law methods and demonstrate their potential for use in legal translation. While it focuses on a theoretical framework for such applications (except for one practical example), it has been preceded by other studies in which the framework proposed was tested based on examples from Polish-English legal translation. The present paper is, in particular, intended to share some of the findings of the author’s research to date with a wider international audience. It needs to be noted that although numerous authors in the field of legal translation studies present the view that comparative law and legal translation are closely related, they usually do not offer a broader overview of comparative law methods or suggest ways of how these methods are supposed to be used by translators. When such references do occur, they mainly concern the traditional functional method without considering the more pluralistic approaches that have emerged in comparative law in the last three decades. The paper proposes to distinguish the general method and the specific methods of comparative law and points to possible ways of adapting them for legal translation purposes as part of a process named ‘translational comparative legal analysis’. It also suggests that translators and translation scholars should more often tap into comparative law methodology in search of solutions useful for legal translation purposes.