BEING CREATIVE WITH THE SYNTAX OF LEGAL LANGUAGE
BEING CREATIVE WITH THE SYNTAX OF LEGAL LANGUAGE

Summary/Abstract: Creativity manifests itself in many areas of translation. Addressing the concept of creativity in legal language seems to be a real challenge that few translation theorists have taken up. Creativity in legal language has drawn the attention of scholarly research since the profile of the legal translator has also incorporated the role of a text producer and respectively that of a co-drafter. The paper is limited to how creativity can be put to work in a single area of the legal language, namely the syntax. It focuses on the basic alterations in the syntax that a legal translator can operate without affecting the substance of legal texts. The purpose of such a ‘creative intervention’ is to achieve clarity, simplicity, conciseness and emphasis, in a word to honor the principle of ‘language consistency.’ Since the area where legal translators can be creative is limited to the nonstandardized legal texts, the practical examples and illustrations chosen belong to persuasive legal language.

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