Abstract:

Drawing on the theoretical framework of transknowletology, this study investigates the application mechanisms and effectiveness of parallel corpora in translating legal terminology from The Civil Code of the People’s Republic of China (hereafter the Civil Code). By constructing a Chinese-English parallel corpus and comparatively analyzing four authoritative translations (from the Legislative Affairs Commission, HeinOnline, the NPC official website, and PKU Law Database), the research yields the following findings: At the linguistic level, all translations show considerable consistency in basic lexical and syntactic features, effectively reproducing the stylistic conventions of legal English. While variations exist in the usage of high-frequency formulaic expressions, overall adherence to the target language’s legal textual norms is evident. Regarding key civil subject terms, translators predominantly employ literal translation for terms with direct equivalence to ensure conceptual accuracy. For culturally specific or conceptually non-equivalent terms, translators adopt explanatory translation strategies to reconstruct cross-system legal knowledge, aiming for functional equivalence in the target context. The findings demonstrate four critical functions of parallel corpora: providing normative references, identifying conceptual gaps, assisting translation strategy selection and validation, and maintaining terminological consistency. These functions enable translators to overcome systemic legal differences and realize accurate conceptual transmission and functional equivalence under the principles of accuracy, appropriateness, and stylistic conformity. The research offers corpus-based approach for translating the Civil Code and enriches the theoretical research of legal translation from a transknowletology perspective.

Key words: transknowletology, civil code, parallel corpus, terminology, application