Legal Translation in China in the Period of the May Fourth Movement: History and Its Implications for Law and Translation Studies

Legal translation in the period of the May Fourth Movement was specially aimed to present both legislative and judicial achievements of legal reform in China since 1902, the reign of the Beiyang Government in particular, via the commonly used languages of the West (English and French), so as to more effectively prove to the great powers that China had brought her legal system, which had been improved dramatically, into accord with that of western nations. The essence of this national translation mission was to urge all the concerned western nations to fulfill their treaty-commitment, in 1902, to relinquish their extraterritorial rights in China. This paper is to sort out the facts of legal translation from other types of translation in China around the May Fourth Movement, the purpose of the legal translation, and the main legal translation institutions and translators during this period of time. The legal translation activities around the period, being anti-imperialist in nature, were designed to meet the needs of both international and domestic politics, and significantly differs from the literary translation activities of the same period.