Integrating Technology in Translating Laws from and into Arabic: Benefits, Implications and Limitations

Legal translation between Arabic and other languages, whether or not used in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), poses real challenges due to de facto differences in legal systems and legal cultures, which give rise to terminological asymmetry and conceptual incongruency. Legal Arabic, as any legal language, is deemed a technical language, which is viewed as an adjunct of typical/ordinary language [ 1 , 2 ]. It is claimed that legal language is employed in legal contexts that ascribe different meanings to legal terms from those they usually relay in non-legal contexts [ 3 ]. This is lent credence by Hart [ 4 ], who argues over the merit that legal terms acquire their legal meanings within a particular legal context and through specific legal provisions. From the syntactic perspective, legal language exhibits a formal and impersonal style, comprising convoluted, lengthy and complex sentences [ 1 , 5 ]. Such complexity of sentences in legal texts is demanded in statutes, for instance, due to the intricate nature of the legal issues contained therein and that of the legislative law [ 1 ]. This applies to the majority of legal languages. Legal language is also characterised by an extensive use of conditions, qualifications, and exceptions, which are adopted to describe complicated contingencies [ 5 ]. Such linguistic features, as Bhatia [ 6 ] points out, create problems of understanding to non-specialists, including translators. Therefore, legal translators should take into account the specific problems caused by the aforementioned features [ 7 ].