Open Access Kent State (OAKS)

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian legal system opened up for study in the West. However, there is little research of Russian legal theory, and translation available in English. As legal translators, it is apparent that legal documents are not created in a vacuum, but are products of the culture’s history and values. And, in order to translate these documents, translators must be aware of the source culture’s legal tradition and how it manifests itself into the documents.

Under the guidance of Dr. Tatyana Bystrova I engaged in a multi part systematic analysis of Russian law and legal texts. First, I extensively researched Russian history, culture, and linguistics, and found its basis in Russian law. Second, I translated many different legal documents from Bills of Sale to the Russian Constitution. Then, I analyzed these documents and qualitatively compared them against their American counterparts. Finally, I detailed how these above factors impact the documents.

This research demonstrated the complexities of Russian legal theory and its implications for students of legal translation. Many translation students primarily study broad translation theory, which is taught amongst students studying various language pairs. But, they may lack education in advanced practical applications of theory, especially in an esoteric subset of translation. This research aims to provide this practical demonstration.

By undertaking this research future legal translators are able to have a strong corpus of legal texts to which they can refer during their education.