Power Issues in Legal Translation: The Methodological Battleground

Abstract

As the receptacle of bilateral sociocultural representations converted in text, translation pits against one another sociocultural and normative models heralded by different anthropological communities, thereby eliciting power issues. Legal texts are the herald of agreed-upon sociocultural truth upon which life within a community is organised. Terms are avatar of normative paradigms. Their use, especially beyond their cognitive anchorage and textual boundaries, deserves to be investigated as they can create resistance as revealed by the legal translation of OHADA in bijural Cameroon. Legal translation is a space, where power is extended on the one hand or restricted on the Other by agents who are translators. Through recourse to specific translation methods, the former lean power on one side rather than the Other. Methodology, therefore, becomes a space, where decisions are made and power constructed. This chapter aims at identifying the methodological processes used by translation to manipulate power. The investigation of this shall be done using Neumann’s game theory to figure out power dynamics at the micro-structural level. Pergnier’s sociolinguistic theory shall be used to demonstrate the necessity to accommodate the Other using symbols likely to draw a parallelism in social function.