Translating legal English terminology: variability of forms in denoting meanings of the grammatical category of number

Abstract

The article focuses on some aspects of conveying meanings of the category of number when translating legal English terms from various fields of the law into Russian. The examples given are illustrative of the variability in grammatical forms of the singular and the plural which denote similar or identical terminological meanings. Translation correspondences for English legal terms and terminological expressions cited from specialized bilingual dictionaries indicate the importance of taking into account the semantics of singularity and plurality in legal translation. The article accentuates the variability of grammatical forms used by legal English and legal Russian to convey the meanings of number and frequent discrepancies of those forms in translation.

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