[blml] translating the laws

[Robert Geller]

Dear BLMLers,
We are now translating the new laws into Japanese.   I'd appreciate advice
from people in other countries about the philosophy of how such translations
should be done.

One extreme is for the translation to be completely literal.  For example,
if the English version uses "cancel", "retract" and "withdraw" in nearly
identical ways, or "award" and "assign," should we assume these subtle
variations were well thought-out and intentional, and translate each of
them differently into Japanese?  Or should we ignore the use of different
words in English, and translate, say "award" and "assign" using the same
Japanese word for both English words?

The answer to this question depends on the question of how careful the
drafters were in their choice of individual words.  My personal guess is
that the drafters was reasonably careful but not super-careful.  So that
it shouldn't be necessary, for example,  to translate "....is unauthorized" and ".... is
unauthorized information" in different ways.   

I'd be interested in learned how people who've been involve in the translation work 
in various countries and also how Grattan and the drafters feel about this.  Thanks.

-Bob

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Robert (Bob) Geller,     Tokyo, Japan        geller at nifty.com