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9 J. Open Access L. 1 (2021)
Translating Legal Texts into Easy Language

handle is hein.journals/jopacc9 and id is 24 raw text is: Translating Legal Texts into Easy Language Christiane MaaB Isabel Rink University of Hildesheim Abstract. Legal communication entails experts communicating with lay persons, some of which may have special needs or even a communication disability. In our contribution, we will discuss the results of a pilot project for accessible legal information and interaction texts. The project was carried out as a cooperation between the Research Centre for Easy Language with the Ministry of Justice of Lower Saxony (Germany) and has led to highly relevant insights into the possibilities of legal translation in the framework of communicative accessibility. Keywords: Communicative accessibility, Easy Language, Accessible legal communication, Intralingual translation, Expert-lay communication 1. Original situation and research question In Germany, people with special communication needs such as cognitive and psychological impairments are entitled to receive legal information in accessible formats. According to Paragraph 11 (title: Comprehensibility and Easy Language, that is, Verstandlichkeit und Leichte Sprache) of the Federal Act on Equality for People with Disabilities (Behindertengleichstellungsgesetz, BGG), these groups must receive official notifications, general rulings, public-law contracts and printed forms in Plain and comprehensible language (in einfacher und verstandlicher Sprache, @ 11 BGG), and, if this does not suffice, in Easy Language (in Leichter Sprache, translation of the authors). Paragraph 4 of the BGG defines additional contexts and user groups with other forms of impairments that might profit from Easy Language. The combination of the listed user profiles and text types in @ 11 BGG is rather challenging and calls for expert translators as well as a systematic approach in research. The legal situation in Germany on the federal and federal state levels has led to the development of a robust translation market for the translation of legal text types into Easy Language. Many of those texts are rather problematic for readers with communication impairments as they are either too long and elaborate (Scenario A) or too short and trivial for them to develop concepts on the text subject (Scenario B; see Rink, 2020, 99ff, English version in MaaB, 2020, 126): Scenario A The target text contains the same amount of information but is excessively long. This will be the case if the translator decides to not eliminate information from the target text or if the text type requires all the source text information to be in the target text. Interaction texts will often require translators to proceed that way. Texts that are designed according to scenario A will not be sufficiently accessible to the regular Easy Language audience on the text level as such texts simply shift complexity from the word and sentence levels to the text level. Scenario B The target text is short enough for the users to process but does not contain enough information to form solid concepts on the subject. Such texts imply that the target audience will not understand the source text information anyway and do not even make an attempt to render their content. Texts that follow scenario B are trivial and poor in information and are not sufficient to grant participation. Rink (2020, 21) presupposes an idealised Scenario C with the following features: Scenario C The target text is retrievable, perceptible, comprehensible, linkable, acceptable and action-enabling. It is correct and functional for the

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