Abstract
M.A. (Applied Linguistics)
The rigid nature of legal language seems to be a major factor
contributing to the inaccessibility or unintelligibility of
legal texts. This is often also true of the translated
texts. As the law plays such an important role in the
community at large, influencing and ruling the lives of its
members in many ways, it should be accessible to all. The
point of departure of this study is therefore the problems
surrounding the apparent poor communicative ability of legal
texts as well as translated legal texts, not only from the
point of view of the uninitiated, but also the initiated,
those who are legally literate. In this context, linguistic
and extralinguistic characteristics of legal texts,
theoretical as well as pragmatic, are identified to
illustrate the differences between legal and other technical
texts. The development of South African law is discussed in
broad terms to illustrate where the various legal categories
influencing the nature of legal texts differ or agree. From
this it is clear that the South African legal system, while
strongly influenced by Roman-Dutch as well as English law,
developed indigenously and is therefore unique .. A study of
the analysis and interpretation of a legal translation can
therefore not, merely with minor adjustment, be compared with
studies of legal translation in other countries, because of
the vast differences between legal systems.