The use of comparable corpora on (general) terms and conditions as a pedagogical tool in translation training between English and Italian

Abstract

Legal translation is hallmarked by many peculiarities revolving around language intricacies, particular lexical phrases or formulae, and system-specificity issues. Translating a legal text entails not only finding equivalent terms or phrases from a source language to a target language, but also verifying correspondences between the source and target legal systems. The literature has long highlighted the benefits and usefulness of corpus-based approaches to legal terminology in order to discern the meanings and usages of terms in context and find possible equivalents in another language. At present, there is a spectrum of legal corpora dedicated to court-related topics and legislation, but there is no corpus composed of private legal documents such as contracts or agreements. This research project wishes to bridge this gap by providing a corpus related to the domain of (general) terms and conditions of web hosting services, together with a model for its use in the translation classroom. The subcorpora (one in British English and the other one in Italian) are created for legal translation purposes and legal translation training, as well as for legal language skills improvement and legal system specificity awareness. Terms of web hosting services are focused on in view of the increased necessity for companies and individuals to be present and sell online after the Covid-19 pandemic. The questions that this research project wishes to address are the following: 1) How and to what extent can English and Italian comparable corpora of terms and conditions of web hosting services cater for the needs of legal translators, legal translation students, legal practitioners and scholars interested in legal language? 2) Can such corpora be considered qualitatively reliable and useful to deliver accurate translations of terms of (web hosting) services? 3) Can they be used as (supplementary) language tools in translator training (and translation practice)? 4) Do they help produce translations that are accurate, native-like and that resemble authentic legal language, at least in the field tackled by the research project (i.e., web hosting services)? This research project is also aimed at teaching translation students how to find equivalent terms, phrases, legal formulae and clauses. In practice, the research project highlights how equivalent legal words, phrases and terminology can be sourced by carrying out simple and/or advanced searches in the corpora via the Sketch Engine interface, and how these can be performed in translation training. The research project also explains how similarities and discrepancies in the two legal systems can be tackled thanks to corpus analysis and the consultation of legal dictionaries, statutes and the case-law of both legal systems. The hypothesis on the usefulness of corpus searches in translator training is then corroborated through the analysis of the results of two practical sessions carried out with Master's students in Translation Studies. The research project findings prove the usefulness and reliability of corpus consultation to source acceptable equivalents, propose authentic, or native-like, phrases, raise system-specificity awareness and deepen legal language knowledge, thus greatly improving legal translation skills.