Aspects of Translating Legal Register from English into Arabic: A Contrastive Textual Analysis

Abstract

This study tries to investigate the linguistic and textual aspects of translating legal register from English into Arabic and to explore the similarities and differences between them by analyzing English and Arabic legal texts in terms of their morphological, syntactic, semantic, stylistic, and pragmatic features. In this respect, translators deal with legal register as a special case in terms of using sound terminology and paying attention to the cultural differences between source language and target language.  A textual analysis involves all about the text and its textuality or texture by making a concrete comparison to reveal the difficulties that may pose an obstacle in front of the translators and language's users to understand how the legal register in both English and Arabic can be used in the situational context of the text which is usually particular one and deals with a specialized domain of language. Registers generally are the varieties or variation that arise in association with language use and its context. Legal language or legal register is a specialized domain which requires that translators and language users should care about its layout, formality, style, and archaic expressions to achieve its particular communicative purposes. Legal register is commonly used by those who are interested in law and legal institutions