TRANSLATION OF LEGAL NEOLOGISMS ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE TERM "INSIGNIFICANT CASE"

Abstract

The article deals with the issue on translating legal terms from Ukrainian into English on the basis of a case study of a newly-coined term in Ukrainian legislation – 'maloznachna sprava'. The relevance of the topic of legal translation from English into Ukrainian and vice versa has become especially acute in light of the Ukraine-EU approximation agreement. While the introduction of simplified civil proceedings is itself a step towards the approximation of Ukrainian legislation to the EU, the next stage will inevitably be comparing and contrasting the existing terms within the Ukrainian and EU civil procedures. Ukrainian simplified procedure aims at considering insignificant cases (Ukr. – 'maloznachni spravy') in a speedy manner, while EU accelerated and simplified civil procedure uses the term 'small claims' for cases with a claim value for up to EUR 5,000. Obviously, these notions are not equivalent, but their meaning overlaps, creating pitfalls for translation. Thus, for proper translation, it is important to specify how the concept of small claims fits into Ukraine's national context. The notion of insignificant cases illustrates the relevance of the linguistic study of legal translations, as well as a need for the consolidation of practical achievements in the field of translation of legal discourse and, in particular, legal neologisms. The purpose of legal translation is to create a text that will be interpreted in the same way by legal professionals in the target legal system as it would be in the original legal system. The aim of translation is not to erase linguistic and cultural differences but to accommodate them, fully and unapologetically. The challenge is to convey the legal text as a fragment of a living legal system. When translating, a translator should strive for equivalence, bearing in mind the harmonisation and approximation of terminologies. The linguistic approximation of national Ukrainian legal terms to the EU terminology should be carefully considered to avoid their misinterpretation with the supranatural terms. The author emphasises the necessity to perform concept analysis between the terms in the EU and Ukraine simplified procedures and comes to the conclusion that despite having surface similarity to the EU term 'small claim', the Ukrainian term 'maloznachna sprava' is, in fact, a much wider concept. A range of translations of legal neologisms are described in the article, and the need to use a literal translation of the term is substantiated. As a result of the analysis of possible translation options and the ECtHR translation precedent, it is recommended that the term 'maloznachna sprava' should be translated as 'insignificant case' within the sphere of Ukrainian civil procedure.