Model of Translation of International Legal Discourse: to the Problem of Applying the Transformation Model and the Model of the Reference Set of Features

Abstract

Abstract. The article focuses on analyzes of the translation of international legal discourse applying the transformational model of translation analysis and the model involving tertium comparacionis - the language-mediator as a standard for comparing the original and target texts. The aim of the article is to highlight the peculiarities of the application of the transformation model and the model of the reference set of features for translation analysis of international legal discourse. The article used a complex research methodology involving methods of translation analysis, componential analysis, structural transformational analysis, as well as the elements of comparative method and text-interpretive analysis. The study reached the following conclusions. First, the transformation of nuclear structures of the English original text into surface text structures of the Ukrainian translation, carried out in accordance with the three-stage model of transformational analysis, shows the need to reproduce in Ukrainian translation conditional relations implied in the form of explanatory or attributive meanings. It is found that none of the obtained transformational structures completely coincides with the official translation into Ukrainian. In addition, the Ukrainian translation omits the modal verb of obligation shall, which is present in the English original text, so that the fragment of the translation loses the connotations of imperative modality, which does not correspond to the style of the translated text. The application of the translation analysis model related to the identification of the reference set of features for the original and target texts showed the presence of both common and different features from the reference set. The difference in the text of the translation is revealed by such allomorphic features as (a) "object of action in the singular", in contrast to the original fragment with the object of action in the plural, (b) change from modality of possibility to epistemic modality with verb in the present tense, as well as (c) implicated condition relations in the target Ukrainian text, in contrast to the explicit expression of the condition of the text of the original.