Trying to see the wood despite the trees: A plain approach to legal translation

Abstract

This chapter introduces law translation in 19th-century and post-war Japan, focusing on the purposes of law translation and the effect of translation on the development of Japanese legal language. It then shifts the focus to the current law translation project. Its background and aims are introduced, followed by a discussion on the law translation database system and some of the problems with translations contained in the system. As part of the Japanese governments endeavour to make the Japanese legal system more transparent to the world, a government-led initiative to translate Japanese laws and regulations. The chapter presents a historical overview of law translation in Japan, and the current government project to translate Japanese law into English. Translator training should be an integral part of the effort to improve the quality, efficiency and consistency of law translation. Legal language has been one of the target areas of the plain language movement.