英语法律文本中主要情态动词的作用及其翻译

Abstract

在英文法律文本写作中,能否准确、娴熟地使用情态动词,通常反映文书的起草人或译者的法律语言水准。本文对各类不同法律文本中最常使用的三个情态动词— "shall"、"must"和"may"在文本中的功用和译法作了系统探索。在这三个情态动词中,"shall"最常使用,功能最强大,但其用法和译法 也最富有争议性,因此它是本文讨论的重点。作者通过援引大量的权威双语法律文本中的例证,指出哪些情态动词在文本中属于误用或滥用,淘汰了若干错误或不确 切的译法,并对其合理的用法和译法作了充分论证,为法律文本的作者和译者提供一些作业指引。 Being able to use modal verbs skillfully and correctly attests to the linguistic expertise not only of a legal writer, but of a C-E legal translator as well.This paper looks into the functions of"must","may"and especially "shall",the three modal verbs most frequently used in legal documents,and examines the various ways to have them translated into target language.Drawing amply from authoritative bilingual sources for illustration,the author identifies and analyzes existing conventions for handling modal verbs in legal translation and suggests that additional guidelines or rules be adopted to this end.