This book examines legal translation as a process through which legal meanings, institutions and forms of authority are created and contested.

Moving beyond approaches that treat translation as a technical transfer between languages, it explores translators as participants in legal meaning-making. Drawing on semiotics, phenomenology and legal theory, the book develops an account of legal translation as responsible sign-selection under conditions in which complete equivalence cannot be secured. The analysis covers legal signs, translator agency, discretion and ethics, as well as the historical case of W. A. P. Martin’s translation of Wheaton’s Elements of International Law. It shows how translated legal concepts acquire meaning through selection, circulation and institutional use. The book provides a framework for understanding how translators make judgements within linguistic, doctrinal and institutional constraints, and why these choices carry ethical consequences.

The book will appeal to scholars of translation studies, legal theory and semiotics.

Jinxuan Hu is a PhD student at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). She holds a double degree in English and law, has obtained the Chinese legal qualification certificate, and has worked as an intern lawyer in a law firm for one year. Her research focuses on legal communication, legal translation and legal history. Her publications include articles about plain language in the legal field, and legal translation pedagogy.

Michael Geoffrey Salter is Professor at The Chinese University of Hong Kong (Shenzhen). He has published regularly on legal language, semiotics and legal interpretation. He has taught at leading universities in China and five universities in the United Kingdom, including Lancaster University. His research explores the relationship between language, signs, interpretation and legal decision-making, with particular interests in legal communication, semiotics and the ethical dimensions of legal translation and the latter’s role in 19th Century Sino-British geopolitical conflicts.