Translating Official Documents

by Roberto Mayoral Asensio

Official translations are generally documents that serve as legally valid instruments. They include anything from certificates of birth, death or marriage through to academic transcripts or legal contracts. This field of translation is now as important as it is fraught with difficulties, for it is only in a few areas that the cultural differences are so acute and the consequences of failure so palpable. In a globalizing world, our official institutions increasingly depend on translations of official documents, but little has been done to elaborate the skills and dilemmas involved. Roberto Mayoral deals with the very practical problems of official translating. He points out the failings of traditional theories in this field and the need for revised concepts such as the virtual document, pragmatic constraints, and risk analysis. He details aspects of the social contexts, ethical norms, translation strategies, different formats, fees, legal formulas, and ways of solving the most frequent

156 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Rita P Smits · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book for professional translators who deal with official documents. It could do with less repetition of ideas scattered throughout the text or emphasis on aspects that feel irrelevant in this context (such as the role of translation ethics), and its tone balances between academia and that of a practical manual, but it does manage to fulfill the purposes of both.

Funnily enough, I found in it an example of the type of mistake it guards as against: a Dutch author is called "Mrs Mevrou XXX", but "mevrouw" is actually the epithet for "Mrs" in Dutch and not a personal name.