Legal Translation in Algeria: Between Translation Skills and Teaching Perspectives

Abstract

Legal translation as a specialized academic discipline emerged after the second half of the last century. This is due to the distinction made by translation theorists between literary and technical translation, of which legal translation is a part. However, these theorists did not accept the specific nature of legal translation as it arises from the law itself. This situation led legal translation specialists to develop appropriate approaches that take into account both the reality of the act of translation and the translation skills to be developed through legal translator training, as well as the translator's obligations. Our aim is to examine the nature of the translation process in the field of law and to determine whether one must be a lawyer to translate legal texts. We will then discuss translation skills, particularly the model proposed by Cao, while emphasizing the pedagogical experience of Algerian universities in the field of legal translation. In our opinion, legal translator training should integrate a number of factors, such as methodological training related to the act of translation, legal training, and mastery of the legal languages ​​involved in the translation. To move beyond the era of improvisation in legal translator training, we will present the principles on which Bocquet based his teaching of this discipline, while adapting them to the Algerian context.