The Importance Of Documentary Translation

The importance of translation lies in its role of connecting all cultures. Documentary translation (DT), as Cao (2007) claims, plays “an important role in our increasingly globalised world” (p. 2). She assumes that such role is clear in associations and organizations, like United Nations and European Unions, where multilingualism among their Member States is what distinguishes them. Without being able to translate their documents, it would have been possible to institute any unions. Moreover, Cao noted that the need for translation in increasing due to globalization and the different contacts and exchanges among all states in all levels and fields. Thus, in order to understand the other states, institute official unions and maintain order,

This nature includes a normative nature, a performative one, a technical one, and indeterminate one, according to Cao (2007). Consequently, Cao (2007) asserts that due to this special nature and function of documentary texts, documentary language “has developed particular linguistic features, lexical, syntactical, and pragmatic, to fulfill the demands of the law” (p. 20). Thus, while translating from English into Arabic or vice versa, one notices that documentary language in both differs in the lexical level as well as the syntactical and morphosyntactical

One of the most distinctive features in English documentary language is the use of Latin terms that have fixed translations in Arabic. Mainly, Latin affected English law because of the Roman church authority over Europe (Bouharaoui, 2008). Bouharaoui (2008) adds that the Roman law had much power because of its coherent system. Usually, in translation into Arabic, such terms may be used as fixed ones. Examples on such terms are res judicata that is translated into الأمر المقضي به and actus reus that is translated into الفعل