Translation of Legalterms: A Case of the Muluki Ain (General Code)

Abstract

This study is entitledTranslation of Legal Terms: A Case of the Muluki Ain(GeneralCode). It incorporates the ambiguities, techniquesand problems of translated legalterms. In order to carry out this study, one hundred legal terms were selected from theNepali version of 'Muluki Ain' (General Code) which is published by Law BooksManagement Board, Government of Nepal and corresponding words from Englishversion of the same book. This study shows hundred different ambiguous legal terms andtechniques: literal translation, paraphrasing, borrowing, transliteration, transliteration plusexplanation. Among them, literal translation was the most frequently employed techniquewhich covered 73 per cent and hybrid formation was the least frequent translationtechnique which covered 1 per cent among the total legal terms. The problems intranslating legal terms existedbecause oflack of lexicalization of the legal terms,problems of equivalence, problems of cultural equivalence, and translingual, lexicalambiguity. This thesis contains four chapters.The first chapterintroduces the study in terms ofgeneral background along with importance oftranslation, types of translation, tools andprocedures of translating technical terms, problems of translation, and legal translation inNepal, review of related literature, objectives of the study and significance of the study.The second chapterdiscusses the methodology adopted to carry out the research alongwith sources of data, sampling procedure, tools for data collection, process of datacollection, and limitations of the study.The third chapterdeals with the analysis,interpretation, and presentation of data. The data were tabulated and analyzed usingsimple statistical tools.The last or the fourth chaptercomprises the findings andrecommendations of the study. In the final part of this thesis, references and appendicesare included.