Translating Chinese Legal Documents (TRAN90005)

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject, students will:

• improve their skills in comprehension and interpretation of legal language in Chinese;
• gain knowledge of some issues of contemporary Chinese legal policy and law reform;
• acquire skills to extract information from complex specialized materials written in Chinese, and render them accurately into English;
• be able to present specialized technical information in a correct professional format;
• be equipped with skills to translate Chinese legal documents.

Generic skills

• Bilingualism: Translation entails the highest possible degree of written competence in English and Chinese, with an acute capacity for metalinguistic awareness, and a preparedness to continually improve
• Intercultural understanding: Translation requires the practitioner to be deeply engaged with two cultures and to understand how to mediate between them on behalf of people who do not share both cultures. In this particular subject, students should command the ability in understanding social and economic contexts of Chinese legal system.
• Decision making: Translators are creative decision makers who need to draw on multiple sources of data to form judgments that are seldom clear-cut, and who are prepared to defend their decisions and to revise them when necessary.