Investigating the translation of legal terminologies between English and Vietnamese in public security texts = Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh-Việt các thuật ngữ pháp lý trong văn bản Công an. M.A. Thesis Linguistics: 82202

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES ---***--- NGUYEN THI NHUNG INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYEN THI NHUNG

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS

Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt các thuật ngữ pháp lý

trong văn bản Công an

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

Hanoi, June 2018

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI

UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES

FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

-*** -

NGUYEN THI NHUNG

INVESTIGATING THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMINOLOGIES BETWEEN ENGLISH AND VIETNAMESE IN PUBLIC SECURITY TEXTS

Nghiên cứu cách dịch Anh- Việt các thuật ngữ pháp lý

trong văn bản Công an

M.A MINOR PROGRAMME THESIS

Field : English Linguistics Code : 8220201.01

Supervisor: Assoc.Prof.Dr Le Hung Tien

Hanoi, June 2018

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I am indebted to my supervisor Assoc.Prof Dr Le Hung Tien, for his wholehearted assistance Without his guidance, invaluable suggestions, comments, advice, and corrections, this thesis would have been possible

I also owe a sizeable debt of gratitude to all teachers in Faculty of Linguistics and Cutures of English speaking countries, University of Languages and International Studies who have provided me relevant knowledge

I am grateful to all authors of books listed in the biography, whose ideas are good references for me to conduct and develop this research

Last but not least, I owe my deepest gratitude to my colleagues and my family for encouragement, and support during the process of completing this graduation paper

ABSTRACT

This research is an attempt to find out the differences and similarities between English legal terms and their Vietnamese equivalents, and to draw out appropriate strategies and procedures in the translation of legal terms into

Vietnamese

In the research, legal terms are classified according to their grammatical compositions including one word term and above- word level terms Then, each appropriate strategy and procedure is applied to the translation of terms of equivalence and non-equivalence group so that TL sounds original and natural To some extent, the research may make a contribution to the translation of legal terms and will be of some help to legal circle, especially translators with little experience

of doing the translation in the field

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

TABLE OF CONTENT

DECLARATION i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii

ABSTRACT iii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS iv

TABLE OF CONTENT v

PART I: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Rationale 1

1.2 Aims of the study 1

1.3 Methods of the study 2

1.4 Scope of the study 2

1.5 Organization of the study 3

PART II: DEVELOPMENT 4

CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW 4

1.1 Terminology 4

1.1.1 Definition of terminology 4

1.1.2 Definition of legal terminology 5

1.2 Translation theory 5

1.2.1 Definitions of translation 5

1.2.2 The translation of non-equivalence at word level and above word level 5

1.2.3 Translation procedures 9

1.3 Technical translation 11

1.3.1 Definitions of technical translation 11

1.3.2 Translation method of technical terms 12

1.3.3 Translation of neologisms 12

1.4 Legal terms 13

1.4.1 Features of legal terminology 13

1.4.2 Classification of legal terms according to their structural features 15

1.5 Summary 22

CHAPTER TWO THE TRANSLATION OF LEGAL TERMS 23

2.1 Translation of legal terms at word level from English to Vietnamese 23

2.2 Translation of above-word-level terms by transposition 24

2.3 Translation by omission 32

2.4 Translation by paraphrase 33

2.5 The appropriate strategies and procedures in translating English legal terms 34

2.6 Discussion 35

2.6.1 Potential difficulties in translation of terminologies 35

2.6.2 Suggestions for the translation strategies and procedures 36

2.7 Summary 37

PART III: CONCLUSION 38

1.1 Major findings 38

1.2 Implications for the translation of legal terms 39

1.3 Suggestions for further studies 40

REFERENCES 41

SOURCES OF DATA 44 APPENDIXES I

PART I: INTRODUCTION

1.1 Rationale

The Vietnamese nation has been integrating deeply into the world in every sector such as economy, culture, and security In the fight against crime, Vietnamese Government officials not only introduce policies for crime prevention and suppression but also strengthen the cooperation with other countries and international organizations To map out important strategies, and for a more effective international cooperation, Government officials have to look for regulations, laws and other documents written in English

Thus, the translation of police terms is of great concern However, such a translation from English to Vietnamese or vice versa is a big challenge because of the differences between English and Vietnamese language as each language has its own lexicon as well as its own grammatical structures Translating legal documents

in general and terminology in particular is not a simple task, especially when the new terms keep created in pace with legal development There are linguistic differences between the two language systems and the most noticeable difficulty is the problem of how to deal with non-equivalence legal terms This research paper, therefore, has been carried out with the hope of finding out the common, appropriate and preferable ways to make the translation of legal terms from English to Vietnamese sound original and natural Therefore, the major concern of this paper is to give the

answer to the question: “What are the common translation strategies and procedures

used in the translation of legal terms in public security texts?”

Based on the results from the study, some suggestions are given to security officers who are responsible for translating legal documents

1.2 Aims of the study

Based on the translation theory and linguistic features, the study is ultimately aimed at:

a Collecting legal terms in public security texts and studying their main features in terms of characteristics and compositions

b Identifying the procedures and strategies commonly used by teachers in the lessons on English for Law Enforcement and translators for rendering legal terms

1.3 Methods of the study

As this study is carried out for the sake of English-Vietnamese tranlation of legal terminology, the study is mainly based on the syntheses and analyses of some subtle details from major reference books ans collected materials, especially legal documents The author will then apply the theoretical knowledge and practical experience in translation of such legal documents in analyzing the use of legal terms

in comparison with those in Vietnamese language

The steps of the study on the translation of legal terminology are as follows

Step 1: Reviewing public security materials from different reliable sources

Step 2: Collecting English legal terms from these materials

Step 3: Classifying collected terms into two groups: one-word terms and

above-word-level terms

Step 4: Analyzing the translation of typical examples of the above-mentioned

groupsin order to find out the common strategies and procedures applied in the translation of legal terms

Step 5: Suggesting some implications for the translation of legal terms

1.4 Scope of the study

Since the research serves the need of the teaching of English for Law Enforcement and rendering English legal terms, it mainly focuses on legal terms

found in Law Enforcement English textbooks, newspapers, legal acts,

However, the study cannot cover all terms which appear in these sources, only typical terms with high frequency of occurrence are chosen Because of the characteristics of texts and the language in the materials of public security field, most of the terms are one word and above-word-level terms It is the author‟s

purpose to conduct a study on the translation of legal termsatword-leveland above-word-levelterms based on the grammatical and semantic features of the terms investigated.

1.5 Organization of the study

The thesis consists of three main parts: Introduction, Development and

Conclusion The first part, Introduction outlines rationale, scope, aims, method and

design of the research The second part entitled Development is divided into two chapters Chapter One refers to theories which serve as the foundation for this study and presents the typical features of legal terms and their structural patterns Chapter

Two, The translation of legal terms offers common procedures and strategies for the translation of the terms Finally, Conclusion summarizes all the research

findings

Ultimately, references, data sources and appendixes are indispensable parts

of the study

PART II: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER ONE: LITERATURE REVIEW

1.1 Terminology

1.1.1 Definition of terminology

Valeontis and Mantzari (2006: 1) says “terminology has a twofold meaning: (1) it is the discipline concerned with the principles and methods governing the study of concepts and their designations (terms, names, symbols) in any subject field, and the job of collecting, processing, and mangaging relevant data and (2) the set of terms belonging to the special language of an individual subject field”

In practice, it is more familiar with the second meaning of the term terminology,

which is considered “the set of special words belonging to a science, an art, an author, or a social entity”; for example, “the terminology of law” or “the terminology of culture” In another word, a term, or terminology unit, is the same or designation of a concept in a particular subject field

In Vietnam, many studies on vocabulary as well as terminology have been made by famous linguists such as Nguyen Van Tu, Do Huu Chau, Nguyen Thien Giap, and Nguyen Huu Quynh

Nguyen Van Tu (1968) states that terminology consists of fixed words or phrases which denote concepts of science, manufacturing fields, or culture and so on Similarly,

Do Huu Chau (1998) says that terminology includes specialist words used within a scientific field, a profession or any technical field Besides, Nguyen Thien Giap (1999) defines it as a part of special lexis of a language It consists of fixed words or groups of words which accurately name concepts and subjects belonging to different specialized fields of human beings In addition, Nguyen Huu Quynh (2007:104) defines a scientific term as a word or a phrase which designates a concept in fields of science (social science, natural science, technical science) He also states that generally a scientific term has a certain phonetic form and designates a concept with one meaning (monosemy) which is not the same as the meaning of other terms)

From the above-mentioned definitions, terminology can be considered fixed words or phrases which accurately denote concepts of a particular subject fields

1.1.2 Definition of legal terminology

Legal terminology is the set of technical words or expressions used in the legal field and of particular meanings

In addition, there are different definitions of translation:

1 Translation is the replacement of a representation of a text in one language by a representation of an equivalent text in a second language (Bell, 1991, p 20)

2 Translation is the expression in another language or (target language) of what have been expressed in another source language, preserving semantic and stylistic equivalences (Bell, 1991, p 5)

3 Translation is a communicative process which takes place within a social context (Hatim & Mason, 1990, p 3)

4 Translation is rendering the meaning of a text into another language in the way that the author intended the text Common senses tell that this ought to be simple, as one ought to be able to say something as well in one language as in another On the other hand, you may see it as complicated, artificial and fraudulent, since by using another language, you are pretending to be someone you are not Hence, in many types of text (legal, administrative, dialect, local, cultural) the temptation is to transfer as many source language words to the target language as possible (Newmark, 1988, p.127)

1.2.2 The translation of non-equivalence at word level and above word level

1.2.2.1 Non-equivalence at word level

According to Baker (1992), non-equivalence at word level means the TL has no direct equivalent for a word in the TL He also distinguished 11 types of non-

equivalence and suggests that each type of non-equivalence requires different strategies, some very straightforward, others more involved and difficult to handle The 11 types of non-equivalence are as follows:

a Culture-specific concepts

b The SL concept is not lexicalised in the TL

c The SL word is semantically complex

d The SL and TL make different distinctions in meaning

e The TL lacks a super-ordinate

f The TL lacks a specific term (hyponym)

g Differences in physical or interpersonal perspective

h Differences in expressive meaning

i Differences in form

j Differences in frequency and purpose of using specific forms

k The use of loan words in the source text

To deal with non-equivalence at word level, Baker listed the following strategies used by professional translators

1 Translating by a more specific word

In some cases, it may be necessary to use a more specific word to translate a SL word to a TL word This strategy usually involves in selecting one word among several ones because there may be a SL word whose meaning can be expressed by several TL words

2 Translating by a more general word

In some cases, the translators have to use a more general word since the specific word in the SL does not exist in the TL

3 Translating by cultural substitution

This strategy often involves in replacing culture-specific items by a TL item which does not ha ve the same propositional meaning, but is likely to have the same impact on

the target readers This strategy is beneficial to readers of the TL since they can imagine what that item looks like in their culture

4 Translating using a loan word or loan word plus explanation

This strategy is useful when the translator has to deal with concepts or ideas that are new to the audience, culture-specific items and proper names of diseases or medicines

5 Translating by paraphrase

This strategy can be used when a word or phrase in the SL does not exist in the

TL, or when a when a term in TL does not include all the meanings conveyed by

the SL term for the same concept

6 Translating by omission

Although some theorists may object to this strategy since it is too drastic, it is sometimes appropriate to omit some words or phrases that are not essential to the meaning or the impact of the text

7 Translating by illustration

This is a useful strategy when a word which lacks an equivalent in the TL refers to a physical entity which can be illustrated However, this strategy can hardly be found in translation

1.2.2.2 Non-equivalence above word level

Besides having individual meaning, words, almost always occur in the company of others words to construct meaning Because of the differences lexical patterning or source language and target language, translator usually find difficulties

in translating Lexical patterning deals with collocation and idiom and fix expression.In the following section, the study will concentrate on this type of lexical patterning, namely collocation and the difficulties encountered by translators as a result of differences in collocation of the source and target languages

1.2.2.2.1 Definitions of collocation

Baker (1992:14) defines collocation as „semantically arbitrary restrictions which do not follow logically from the propositional meaning of a word‟ Then Baker added that collocation is “the tendency of certain words to co-occur regularly

in a given language” (1992:47 ) Robin (1989:65) proposes that collocation is the habitual association of a word in a language with other particular words in sentences Thus, collocation is refered to the structural and syntagmatic relation among words in the same sentence or text

Collocation, therefore, is said to be concerned with how words go together, i.e the company that a word keeps contributes to its interpretation

1.2.2.2.2 Some collocation problems in translation

Differences in the collocational patterning of the SL and TL can pose various problems in translation Some of these problems are more difficult to handle with than others The following are some of the more common problems that are often encountered in translating non-literary texts

a) The engrossing effect of source text patterning

It is easy to assume that as long as a collocation can be found in the TL which conveys the same or similar meaning to that of the source collocation,the translator will not be confused by differences in the surface patterning between the two For example, strong tea is literally „dense tea‟ in Vietnamese

b) The tension between accuracy and naturalness

In rendering unmarked source-language collocations into his/her target language, a translator ideally aims at producing a collocation which is typical in the target language while, at the same time, preserving the meaning associated with the source collocation This ideal cannot always be achieved Translation often involves

a tension – a difficult choice between what is typical and what is accurate

The nearest acceptable collocation in the target language will often involve some change in meaning This change in meaning may be minimal, or not particularly significant in a given context The nearest acceptable collocation which can replace

hard drink in Vietnamese is “alcoholic drinks” But hard drink refers only to spirits

in English, for example whisky, gin, and brandy It does not include other alcoholic drinks such as beer, lager, or sherry The Vietnamese collocation, however, refers to any alcoholic drink, including beer, lager, sherry, as well as spirits The meanings of the two collocations therefore do not map completely

c) Culture-specific collocations

Some collocations reflect the cultural setting in which they occur If the cultural settings of the source and target languages are significantly different, there will be instances when the source text will contain collocations which convey what

to the target reader would be unfamiliar associations of ideas Such culture-specific collocations express ideas previously unexpressed in the target language Like culture-specific words, they point to concepts which are not easily accessible to the target reader

Literal translation, or word for word translation, relies on the direct transfer

of a text from SL into a grammatical and meaningful text in TL Using this procedure, the translator focuses predominantly on adhering to the linguistic rules

of the target language In practice, literal translation occurs most commonly when translating between two languages of the same family, such as French and Italian, and works most efficiently when they also share the same culture Despite seemingly limited scope of applications, this procedure is among preferred ways of translating in those functional contexts where more emphasis is laid on preserving the verbatim meaning of the original text than attaining stylistic elegance, which is

often the case with legal translation

1.2.4.2 Transference

It is the process of transferring an SL word to a TL text It includes transliteration and is the same as what Harvey (2003) named “transcription” It is also called Borrowing, Transliteration, or Loan word (Delisle et al., 1999) For example, the Vietnamese language borrows many French words like pedal, guidon, accus, artichaut, amateur, and ampere, and so on

1.2.4.3 Naturalization

This procedure succeeds transference and adapts the SL word first to the normal pronunciation of the TL, then to its normal morphology Example: performance (English) performant (Germany)

1.2.4.4 Cultural equivalence

This is an approximate translation where an SL cultural word is translated by

a TL cultural word These are approximate cultural equivalents Their translation uses are limited; since they are not accurate, but this procedure can be used in general texts, publicity and propaganda, as well as for brief explanation to TL readers who are ignorant of the relevant SL culture This procedure can give greater pragmatic impact than culturally neutral words

1.2.4.5 Functional equivalent

This is also a common procedure, applied to cultural word of the SL required when the TL required a cultural free word or a new specific term in TL So, it neutralizes or generalizes the SL word When a culturally equivalent term in TL is not possible to find a cultural word of SL, this procedure is the most accurate way

of translating We can also extent the procedure to translate the technical term which has no equivalent in TL This procedure may be occasionally used if the term

is of little importance in drama as they can create an immediate effect This procedure occupies the middle area between the language and culture of SL and the language and culture of TL If the functional equivalent is practiced one to one then,

it becomes undertranslation If practiced one to two, it may be an over translation

1.2.4.6 Descriptive equivalent

In translation, description has to be weighed sometimes against function Description and function are essential elements in explanation and, therefore in translation

1.2.4.7 Shifts or transpositions

Transposition, or shift as Catford calls it, reflects the grammatical change that occurs in translation from SL to TL According to Newmark, it involves a

change in the grammar from SL to TL, for instance, (i) change from singular to plural, (ii) the change required when a specific SL structure does not exist in the TL, (iii) change of an SL verb to a TL word, (iv) change of an SL noun group to a TL noun and so forth

1.2.4.8 Recognized translation

It occurs when the translator“normally uses the official or the generally accepted translation of any institutional term”(Newmark, 1988b:89)

1.2.4.9 Paraphrase

This is an amplification or explanation of the meaning of a segment of a text

It is used in an “anonymous” text when it is poorly written or when it had important implications and omissions One should be careful in listing paraphrases as a translation procedure, because this word is often used to describe free translation The procedure is the minimal recasting of an ambiguous or obscure sentence, in order to clarify it

1.2.4.10 Omission

This strategy may sound rather drastic, but infact it does no harm to omit translating a word or expression in some contexts If the meaning convey by a particular item or expression is not vital enough to the development of the text to justify distracting the reader with lengthy

explanations, translators can and often do simply omit translati ng the word

1.3.1 Definitions of technical translation

Sofer (1999) claims that the translation of a text may be called technical when it requires specialized terms in a particular field Newmark (1995, p.151) argued that “Technical translation is one part of specialized translation; institutional

translation, the areas of politics, commerce, finance, government etc., is the other.”

He also added “Technical translation is primary distinguished from other forms of translation by terminologies, although terminology usually make up about 5-10% of

a text.” Thus, dealing with terminologies is important in translation and is a part of technical translation

1.3.2 Translation method of technical terms

Newmark suggests some useful steps for technical translation First of all, it

is necesssary to read it first to understand it and then to assess it, its degree of formality, its intention, the possible cutural and professional differences between the readership and the original one The translator also needs to account for everything, every word, every figure, letter and punctuation mark

During the process of translation there may be words and structures containing existential problems Therefore, Newmark recommends that translators should pay attention to words with prefixes or suffixes Also, it is essential for translators to take into account semi-empty words; verbs required a recasting of the

TL sentence and pun words

1.3.3 Translation of neologisms

1.3.3.1 Definitions of neologisms

As Newmark (1988) claimed, “neologisms can be defined as newly coined lexical units or existing lexical units that acquire a new sense” The main reason that leads to the arrival of neologisms is that new objects and processes are continually created in technology, new ideas and variations on feeling come to the media and new terms from the social science, slang, dialect and transferred words come into the main stream of language Newmark also proposes types of neologisms and the translation of each type

1.3.3.2 Types of neologisms

- Old words with new senses: words, collocation

- New coinages

- Derived words

1.4.1 Features of legal terminology

Legal terminologies are linguistic items and they also have their own features which distinguish legal terminologies from the other items of language

1.4.1.1.Accurateness

Terminologies in any field are obligated be accurate particularly in public security texts There are two reasons for accuracy of these legal terminologies First and foremost, they are often used in policies and reports which relate to legal issues, operations, and counter- measures Thus, they can not be inaccurate or ambiguous One terminology shall have only one way to interpret Secondly, terminologies convey concepts in public security that are widely accepted so the terminologies are obligated to be fixed in terms of meaning and form

For instant, the term police (cảnh sát) refers to only one concept that denotes

the civil force of a national or local government, responsible for the prevention and detection of crime and the maintenance of public order

Similarly, there are endless examples of single meaning terms such as violence (bạo

lực), owner (người sở hữu), etc that respectively refer to a single concept

1.4.1.2 Systematism

Each of scientific field has its own system of limited and accurate concepts expressing through its system of terminologies and public security is not an exception Each term belongs to the system of security-related terminologies One term relates to other terms in the system The semantic value

of a term is determined by its relation with others in the same field, once isolated the term does not hold that value An illustration is the terminology “seeking” means the action to acquire drug only when it comes together with other terms of drug in a certain context

The term “bill” means “a written suggestion for a new law that is presented

to a country‟s parliament so that its members can discuss it” only when it belongs to system of legislative terms

1.4.1.3 Internationalism

Public security related problem has been a great challenge to the whole world Although people use different languages, they share common concepts in security problem The terminologies may be expressed differently due to the distinction of languages; however, their meanings still the same amongst uncommon languages

For example: in English we have the term “drug seeking” In Vietnamese we have “hành vi chiếm dụng ma túy” They are not expressed identically but they both identify actions to acquire drugs, which include buying from licit supplies (e.g liquor outlet, cigarette vendors), illicit drug supplies or dealers, forging medical prescriptions or presenting to medical practitioners in an attempt to acquire prescription medication for non-medicaluse

Example:

freedom tự do terrorism khủng bố police công an

1.4.2 Classification of legal terms according to their structural features

Legal terms can be classified into two groups according to their grammatical composition including one-word terms and above-word-level terms

1.4.2.1.One-word terms and acronyms

English technical or scientific terms, which are formed of one word, hold a remarkable proportion among others In the field of legal terminology, one-word term account for a large percentage which is usually nouns or verbs and acronyms

1.4.2.1.1 One-word terms which appear in the form of a verb

The legal terms in the form of a verb represent a large proportion of all terms

found in public security texts For example: enact, contravene, assemble, amend,

participate, recognize, organize, commit, warrant, proceed, entitle, appeal, approve, arrest, authorize, empower, disperse, etc

A typical feature of these terms is that they are changeable; that is, they can appear either in the form of a verb or a noun at different positions in the same text

or in the same sentence to avoid reiteration Most of these one-verb terms have their nouns to be used as alternatives:

Verbs Nouns

assemble assembly (cuộc tụ tập) amend amendment (sự sửa đổi) recognize recognition (sự công nhận) empower power (thẩm quyền)

authorize authorization (sự uỷ quyền) approve approval (sự thông qua) regulate regulation (quy định) elect election (cuộc bầu cử)

1.4.2.1.2 One-word terms which appear in the form of noun

The terms which are nouns can be divided into two subgroups as the following:

Subtechnical terms

Many legal terms are normal words that lose their “normal” sense and acquire their special meanings in this subject For example, the normal sense of

power is “energy that can be collected and used to operate a machine, to make

electricity, etc” (năng lượng) while its specialist meaning is “the right of authority of a person or group to do something” (thẩm quyền)

Other examples:

interest (lợi ích) effect (hiệu lực) justice (tư pháp) restriction (chế định) Unless the users of subtechnical terms have made themselves accquainted with the general meaning of the words which popularly exist in General English, it

is possible that they may be confused in the usages of these words as they take on special meaning in a concrete scientific and technical field These terms are only clear to them when they have a thorough understanding about that subject

Highly technical terms

Every subject has its set of highly technical terms, which is an intrinsic part of the leaning of the discipline itself To understand these terms the user might need to comprehend their theory These highly technical words can be really problematic when the user has relatively little knowledge of his subject discipline as well as of English

Following are some of the frequently used highly technical terms such as:

provision: điều khoản conviction: kết án

1.4.2.1.3 Acronyms

Acronyms are words formed from the initial letters of words that simplyfy long and wordy proper names of countries, organizations, projects, institutions, etc Example:

PPA (People‟s Police Academy)

UNODC (United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime)

INCB (International Narcotics Control Board)

1.4.2.2 Above-word-level terms

There are terms which are composed of two or more than two words; these words, which are of different parts of speech, combine together and create terms that have the form of nominal group as proposed by Halliday (1985)

Deictic Numerative Epithet Epithet Classifier Thing Qualifier

pantographs

Deictic: The Deictic element indicates whether or not some specific subset of

the Thing is intended It can be either specific such as this, that, these, those, my,

your, her, its, etc or non-specific like a, an, each, all, every, etc

Numerative: The Numerative element indicates some numerical features of

the subset: either quantity (one, two, three, etc.) or order (first, second, third, etc.), either exact (one, two, three, etc.) or inexact (few, little, several, etc.)

Epithet: The Epithet indicates some quality of the subset This may be an

objective property of the thing itself or it may be an expression of the speaker‟s

subjective attitude towards it, e.g common law, public order, statutory rule,

local authority, simultaneous assembly, local authority, relevant condition, public place, etc

Classifier: The Classifier indicates a particular subclass of the thing in

question; it can be an adjective or a noun For instance, street protest, police office, police district, media access, crowd control, civil liability, criminal liability, mediation session, etc

Verbs also enter into the nominal group and function as Epithet or Classifier

in one of the two forms:

(i) Present (active) participle, e.g closing, as in closing order (lệnh đóng cửa)

prohibited place (khu vực cấm), related, as in related matter (vấn đề

liên quan) When serving as Epithet, these forms usually have the sense of the finite tense to which they are most closely related: the present participle means “which

is (was/will be)… ing‟, and the past participle means “which has (had/will have) been … ed.”

Example: an restraining order (an order which is restraining)

prohibited place (the place which has been prohibited) When these forms function as Classifier, they typically have the sense of a simple present, active or passive: present (active) “which …s”, past (passive)

“which is/are …ed”

Example: a leading question (a zone which leads)

interested person (a person who is interested)

Thing: The Thing is the semantic core of the nominal group, which may be

common noun, proper noun or personal noun For example: statutory rule, public

authority, additional document, counter assembly, etc

Qualifier: The Qualifier is the element which follows the Thing and

characterizes it The Qualifier can be a relative clause or a prepositional phrase For example: place of assembly, maintenance of public order, delegation of powers, right of peaceful assembly, common law of trespass, etc

1.4.2.2.2 Legal terms created in the form of the nominal group

1.4.2.2.2.1 Terms consisting of Classifier (noun) +Thing

As implied by the name, a term of this group consists of two nouns, the first noun functions as Classifier and helps to distinguish the Thing (the second noun) from other concept of the same group For example, there are many types of law (Thing) that can be distinguished from one another by different Classifiers that precede them, e.g criminal law><international law >< civil law >< corporate law Other examples of this group:

street protest (cuộc biểu tình đường phố) criminal liability (trách nhiệm hình sự)

1.4.2.2.2.2 Terms consisting of Classifier (adjective) +Thing

A term of this group is formed by an adjective that serves as Classifier and the Thing Example:

Public order (trật tự công cộng)

Common law (thông luật)

Statutory rule (luật thành văn)

The Classifier can be further modified by another subclassifier that takes on the form of a noun or an adjective

Example:

relevant local authority (chính quyền địa phương hữu quan)

amphetamine-type stimulants (chất kích thích dạng amphetamin)

1.4.2.2.2.3 Terms consisting of Classifier/Epithet (present participle) +Thing

In this group, some present participle may function as Classifier and some as Epithet when interpreted in different situations

Example:

an restraining order (lệnh cấm)

a leading question (câu hỏi dẫn dắt)

1.4.2.2.2.4.Terms consisting of Classifier/Epithet (past participle) +Thing

Like present participle, some past participle may serve as Classifier, some as Epithet and the function it carries depends on different situations

Example:

protected areas (khu vực được bảo vệ) required notice (thông báo được yêu cầu) implied consent (sự cho phép được hiểu ngầm) designated place (địa điểm được quy định) expected number of participants (số lượng người tham gia theo dự kiến)

1.4.2.2.2.5 Terms consisting of Classifier/Epithet (noun + present participle) + Thing

The present participle can be modified by nouns and create terms like the followings:

problem-solving plan (kế hoạch giải quyết vấn đề)

1.4.2.2.2.6.Terms consisting of Classifier/Epithet (noun + past participle) +Thing

The past participle can also be modified by nouns and create terms like the followings:

court appointed attorney (luật sư do toà chỉ định)

evidence-based crime policy (chính sách tội phạm dựa trên chứng cứ) anomaly-based detection (phát hiện dựa trên sự bất thường)

1.4.2.2.2.7 Terms consisting of Thing + Qualifier (prepositionalphrase)

The Qualifier in this group is a prepositional phrase which includes preposition “of” plus a nominal group

Example:

Statue of limitations (luật quy định giới hạn thời gian) Right of peaceful assembly (quyền hội họp một cách hoà bình) Delegation of powers (sự uỷ quyền)