In:Handbook of Terminology: Volume 3. Legal Terminology
Edited by Łucja Biel and Hendrik J. Kockaert
[Handbook of Terminology 3] 2023
► pp. 191–205
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Bilingual legal terminology in Hong Kong
Past, present and future
Available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives (CC BY-ND) 4.0 license.
For any use beyond this license, please contact the publisher at rights@benjamins.nl.
Published online: 1 December 2023
https://doi.org/10.1075/hot.3.bil1
https://doi.org/10.1075/hot.3.bil1
Abstract
The aims of this chapter are to describe the development of bilingual legal terminology in Hong
Kong, to identify current issues and to explore future directions, including finding appropriate strategies to
translate English legal terms into Chinese, based on key recent examples. Having been under the British rule for more
than 150 years, Hong Kong is for the first time in history translating the entire common law system into Chinese. This
process of “legal bilingualism” started at the legislative level and then extended to the judicial level, with the
first bilingual law enacted in 1989 and the first English judgment translated into Chinese in 1995. However, there has
been criticism of some newly coined Chinese legal terms. It is hoped that while the translation of case law continues,
more suitable methods will be adopted to translate English legal terms into Chinese, that meet both the local needs of
this post-colonial city and the needs of the Chinese world at large.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Past history: Creation of bilingual legal terminology
- 2.1Conceptual issues of Hong Kong Chinese legal terminology
- 2.2Conceptual issues of Chinese legal terminology in Chinese regions
- 3.Present state: Implementation of bilingual legal terminology
- 3.1Methodology and related issues
- 3.2Resources and related issues
- 4.Future outlook: Bilingual legal terminology in the making
- 4.1Full use of terminological data
- 4.2More use of descriptive method
- 4.3Conformity with Chinese grammar
- 5.Conclusion
References
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