Problems of Translating Legal Contracts: Perspectives of Saudi Translation Students

Legal translation is one of the challenging domains for translation students. In Saudi Arabia, university translation students are reported to encounter difficulties while translating legal contracts from English to Arabic and vice versa. Also, the literature shows that translation students use certain strategies to overcome these difficulties. This study attempted to examine the most common challenges/difficulties encountered by Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts and the strategies used by them to overcome such difficulties. In order to achieve these goals, the researcher used the descriptive analytical approach and used the questionnaire instrument in order to collect the data from the research sample. The population of this research consisted of all Saudi translation students in two Saudi universities, namely King Saud University and Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. The research population are those students who study at the English language department in each university in the fourth year whose number is (106) students. The target sample is (50%) of the research population. So, the sample size is (53) students, being selected randomly. The findings of the study showed that legal binominal expressions and parallel structure, the structure of legal sentences, the multiple negatives, and the legal text layout are the major challenges that encounter Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts. On the other hand, parallel texts, CAT tools, and Google translation have been reported as strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the difficulties they face when they translate legal contracts. The results of the study have important implications for translation teachers, translation syllabus designers, universities, and translation students.


Introduction
Legal translation in its general sense comes within the domain of specialized translation. It is generally known that this kind of translation focuses on documents and editorial subjects and legal formulas such as contracts, judgments or legal instruments, and therefore translating them into another language is considered a legal translation (Frade, 2015). The aim is to find an appropriate, alternative, and consistent format for the document, text and subject, in which the translator takes into account the conventions and terminology related to the subject and highlights the original concept without any difference or ambiguity (Duraner 2012).
The legal translator depends on his practice and his good understanding of the subject and in most systems he must be sworn in in the language to which he is translated (Khaydarova, 2019). Legal translation is above all a matter of convention and requires a high degree of accuracy that often leads to the process of interpretation (Karjo, 2015). This is due to the notion that the legal texts have distinctive morphological, semantic, grammatical, terminological, genre, abbreviations pragmatic and stylistic features which make it challenging for translators (Hargitt 2013). on the produced text (Hargitt, 2013). Moreover, the legal system of legal translation is a transition between two languages that express two different legal systems. The legal translator must make a comparison between them in order for the translation to achieve its goal (Alwai & Fakhouri 2010). Additionally, the legal text exhibits a high degree of linguistic conservation, including written instruction such as court judgments, contracts, constitutions, charters, treaties, protocols and regulation (Ali 2016). Its difficulty is that it is a process of transferring a text from one legal system to another legal system, and that the legal text is directed to two categories of different levels: the category of common people and the category of legal professionals (Alwazna, 2013).
In addition, legal translation is considered one of the types of translations where the translator is subject to stringent semantic constraints at all levels due to the peculiar features of the language of legal language on the one hand and the culturally mediated nature of legal discourse on the other (Wang & Sin, 2013). So, the challenges of legal translation should be tackled based on the translation and the nature of the law or legal texts. The challenges associated with legal translation differ from one language to another and it is a context-specific phenomenon (Qian 2021;Sammut 2021). The findings differed according to the lanaguge, culture, and context (Yungao & Shudong 2020).
This study addresses Saudi translation students' views about the translation of legal contracts, the encountered challenges and the possible strategies for alleviating them.

Statement of the Problem
The problem of this research is that translators always commit errors in the translation of legal texts, basically from English into Arabic and from Arabic to English (Faris & Sahu, 2013). Also, the language researchers attribute the problems that the translators face in the translation of legal documents to many reasons such as the translators' lack awareness of legal terms, the translators' lack of culture awareness of the legal register, the translators' poor mastery of the target language and their native language (Jabak et al., 2016). This lack of awareness always results in a poorly translated materials and causes a lack of understanding from the part of the readers (Malinowski, 2001).
With regard to Saudi translation students, several studies have shown that Saudi translators face problems in translating legal documents, especially legal contracts. For example, Salamah (2021) found that the lack of equivalents, the translators' lack of mastery of the legal terminology and phrases, the cultural differences between English and Arabic legal texts are major problems for Saudi translation specialists. Also, Mohammed (2018) reported that Saudi translators need additional training and experience in order to embark on legal translation. This is also consistent with Abu-ghararah (2017) who found that there is a huge gap between academic training and the requirements of the Saudi translation market.
In a similar vein, Elmahdi (2016) reported that Saudi university students encounter many translation problems such as cohesion errors, spelling errors, vocabulary errors, grammar errors, and word-choice errors. These errors can be attributed to linguistic and non-linguistic factors. Bostanji (2010) concluded that translating legal texts is far more difficult for Saudi translation specialists compared to the translation of other texts due to the complexity of legal texts, lack of knowledge of legal terms, and lack of mastery over the Arabic and English language, especially in dealing with complex structures and texts from other contexts.
Furthermore, other Saudi researchers (e.g. Al-Ahdal et al., 2017;Taamneh, 2018;Atari, 2005) revealed that the translation of culture-specific legal terms constitutes a significant difficulty for Saudi translators in translating commercial contracts and agreements from Arabic into English and vice versa, followed by general legal terminology, text layout, and finally tense, modals, punctuation, capitalization, and sentence structure.
Based on the above, this study investigates the problems of translating legal contracts by Saudi translation students in the 4 th grade in a number of Saudi universities in order to reveal their perceptions and challenges when translating legal contracts and the strategies used to overcome these challenges.

Research Questions
Based on the above literature, this study attempts to answer the following questions: 1) How Saudi translation students perceive the problems of translating legal contracts?
2) What are the most common challenges of translating legal contracts as perceived by Saudi translation students?
3) What are the strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the challenges of translating legal contracts?

Literature Review
Legal translation has emerged as one of the most important translation domains, especially the translation of legal contracts that serve as the basis of business transactions, commercial dealings, social and technical agreements (Ababneh, 2019). Legal translation is faced with many linguistic, social, cultural challenges that entail that a translator should be linguistically and culturally aware of the source and target languages, especially English and Arabic ones (Engberg, 2020).
Legal translation is a combination of many different sources and interrelated settings in which culture and language play a major role. Therefore, translators should bear in mind the differences between languages between English as an Indo-European language and Arabic as Semitic language which belong to different language families, thus translators encounter difficulties in translating the terminology (i.e., Religious Law vs. Common Law terms), syntactic (i.e. modals and passive structures' incongruities), or textual (i.e. lexical repetition and punctuation marks) (El-Farahaty, 2016). Wenlong & Gonghua (2021) reported that the obscurity of legal texts in correlation with the written form of laws. The problem of functional equivalence with the legal translator, as the legal translator must translate the legal term in (A) and the legal system (A) in what is functionally appropriate in language (B) and the legal system (B), and this makes it difficult for the legal translator as requires more time and effort from the translator.
Another cause of the obscurity of the English language of law lies in its foundation on tradition and customary law (Enberg, 2020). English language of law is influenced by other European languages, particularly by German and French (Sammut 2021). The legal translator must have the ability to adapt the translation according to the language standards and terminology prevailing in the country to which he is translated.
The legal translator faces many problems when translating legal letters that consist of strange and intractable terms that the translator may encounter for the first time (Qian, 2021). The translated text should always have the same legal effect as the source text and may address serious political and international issues, so that a wrong translation in the field of law may induce peace or a prompt war (Yunyao & Shudong, 2020). This type of translation requires translators specialized in the legal field because law is a system linked to language which is itself constrained by criteria governed by meaning rather than form (e.g. Duranti 1997; Bhatia & Bhatia 2011).
Many researchers have described the challenges associated with legal translation. Harvey (2002) claimed that translating legal text is considered to be one of the most arduous and demanding jobs that encountered by translators because of the system-bound nature of legal terminology and its special syntactic, semantic and pragmatic rules (Cosmai 2014). Fargal & Shunnaq (1992) classify contract translation linguistic-related problems into three categories: syntax-related problems, layout-related problems, and tenor-related problems. Translation is a science and an art, and it is necessary to specialize in one of its fields, and it is required for the translator to be constantly aware of all developments and this is to keep pace with the developments of the singular and phraseological formulations in his field of specialization, especially if it is in the field that requires imparting an aesthetic spirit to the text while preserving the integrity of the correct meaning of it (Hargitt 2013). Further, Specialization plays a major role in raising the level of translation and helps to preserve the text, or in other words, it has an active role in analyzing the text and converting it into the target language (Frade, 2015).
According to Baker (1992), the lack of functional equivalence is the most common challenge when translating legal texts. Specialized legal translation means specializing in translating the legal language through familiarity with legal terminology in order to avoid errors at the level of the legal concept and the word that carries the meaning intended to be communicated. Because every misunderstanding of the legal text results in a misinterpretation and gives another meaning far from the original meaning. A legal translator must be able to use the language effectively to express legal actions and achieve the desired effect (Kelly 2005).
Kordić (2020) explored that legal translators face difficulties due to linguistic and cultural differences between the target and source languages when translating legal texts. Moreover, style and lexis problems were identified in the translation of legal texts. According to Dijk (1985), language is a means of expressing the law, usually subject to a large number of rules at the stylistic, grammatical, semantic and lexical levels that are installed at the top of the hierarchical structure of the legal system.
Legal Arabic relies mainly on Islamic law and Civil law. For instance, Saudi Arabia utilizes the Qur'an and Prophetic tradition (Sunnah) in its formal dealings whereas Egypt follows both Islamic and Civil Law (Triebel, 2009). Translation to and from the Arabic language, which needs control and accuracy, because one word in the English language may have more than ten meanings, and so an Arabic word may have several synonyms in English, so here the translator's wit appears in the good choice and use of appropriate and alternative words for the Arabic In the domain of English-Arabic translation, there are various researchers who investigated the use of legal translation and lexical problems and reached different results. For example, Fargahal and Shunnaq (1992) focused on the problematic areas encountered by MA students who wanted to translate a United Nation legal document. Also, Ali (2016) showed that the most apparent challenges encountered by Sudanese translators in translating legal texts are language-related challenges, followed by style-related challenges, culture-specific challenges, and culture-specific challenges, respectively. El-Sadik (2018) reported that Jordanian translators face linguistic and non-linguistic difficulties in translating legal texts. Accordingly, Al Aqad (2014) concluded that the lack of knowledge of translation theories is a major problem for modern translators.
In Saudi Arabia, the results of Bostanji (2010) concluded that translating legal texts is far more difficult compared to the translation of other texts due to the lack of linguistic mastery in general and legal language in particular. Salamah (2021) and Mohammed (2018) reported that Saudi translators have linguistic and cultural problems when translation legal texts.
Elmahdi (2016) found that Saudi college learners commit different translation errors such as lexical, spelling, and meaning errors when translating legal texts. In addition, Ababneh (2019) found that the lack of English knowledge, unfamiliarity with some English terms, cultural and religious factors, and literal translation are the leading causes of wrong translations among Saudi EFL university students.
The above studies have concentered on the translation of agreements, literary texts, and international legal texts using translation tests and surveys, especially from the perspective of translation practitioners and specialists.
There is no previous similar research concentrating on the experiences of Saudi translation students in translating legal contracts in particular. Previous similar research may be useful, but it has a weak relevance to the Saudi translation students. Several factors have been found to affect the translation of legal contracts, however the relevance of these factors to Saudi translation students has been inadequately researched.

Research Method
The present study used the descriptive analytical approach. It is a systematic method in which the researcher studies a subject in its natural form, and is supported in this by collecting the amount of data and information that he deems appropriate. Then clarify the relationship between the research variables in the form of questions or hypotheses, and then use the statistical analysis tools that fit the nature of the research data, followed by the development of the results, and then the researcher ends with formulating solutions, which he sees from his point of view as appropriate (Crowder et al., 2017).
The descriptive approach is characterized by reliance on objectivity in the procedures of the studies, with a complete departure from personal bias on the part of researchers (Robson, 1993). Once causal relationships have been established, the search then shifts to factors that can be changed (variables) in order to influence the chain of causality.
This study describes and analyses the problems of legal contracts translation from the perspective of Saudi translation students.

Participants
An accurate determination of the research population is vital in order to collect the required data for the research problem. While population is the entire set of participants of interest, sample is a representative subset of the population. The population of this research consists of all Saudi translation in two Saudi universities, namely King Saud University and Imam Mohammad Ibn Saud Islamic University. The research population are those students who study at the English language department and Translation department in each university in the fourth year whose number is (106) students. The target sample is (50%) of the research population. So, the sample size is (53) students, being selected randomly. Those who responded to the data collection tool with valid responses is (42) students with a response rate reaching to (79.2%).

Instrument
The questionnaire is used in this study as the main data collection tool. The research questionnaire is designed based on previous studies and researches. The researcher has drafted the questionnaire items based on the empirical research and past relevant studies that tackled the challenges of translating legal texts, especially legal contracts. The questionnaire is used because it is easy and can collect much information from a big number of participants (Girko, 2018). This questionnaire consisted of (2) sections which can be described as follows:  The most common challenges of translating legal contracts as perceived by Saudi translation students. This section consisted of (16) items that check the challenges of translating legal contracts from the perspective of Saudi translation students.  The strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the challenges of translating legal contracts. This section consisted of (6) items that check the strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the challenges encountered when translating legal contracts.
The questionnaire is distributed on the research sample and the responses are gathered within (1) week. The researchers used the Likert scale that consists of (5) ratings "Strongly Agree" (5), "Agree" (4), "Neuter" (3), "Disagree" (2), and "Strongly Disagree" (1). The questionnaire was written in the English language. The questionnaire was self -administered and distributed personally to the participants.
The participants of the research were made aware of the research objectives and their approval to participate in the study was ensured. Also, the participants were informed that their responses will be used for the research purposes only and will not affect them in any aspect. Furthermore, the confidentiality of the data is ensured. On the other hand, the researcher obtained the ethical committee approval and official approval for data collection.

Validity & Reliability
Validity refers to the degree to which a study accurately measures what is schemed to measure (Crowder et al., 2017). While reliability is about the consistency of findings, validity is about the study's success at measuring what the researchers set out to measure (Giro, 2018).
The researcher achieved the face validity of the questionnaire by verifying that the questionnaire measures what it is intended to measure. The questionnaire has been made available to a number of judges who are majored in legal translation. In light of the comments and remarks provided by the judges, the researcher has modified the questionnaire and rephrased the items that need more clarity and relevance to the intended goal.
In this research, the researcher has used Cronbach's Alpha coefficient to assess the reliability of the questionnaire sections. Table 1 presents the results of Cronbach's Alpha coefficient for the questionnaire:

Statistical Tools
Selecting the right statistical methods depends on the nature of the data and the relationship between the method and the research objective (Girko, 2018). The main data analysis techniques used in the research are as follows: mean, percentage, standard deviation, frequency, and order of mean scores.

Results & Discussion
This part presents the findings of the study. As the main data collection tool in this research is the questionnaire, this research seeks to present the participants' responses to the items of the questionnaire. In the below part, the findings related to Saudi translation perceptions of challenges of translating legal contracts and the strategies used to alleviate these challenges are presented. Also, these findings are discussed. The responses are shown in table 2  and table 3 as below: jpl.ccsenet.org Journal of Politics and Law Vol. 15, No. 2;2022 Table 2 demonstrates the responses of the participants to the questionnaire items that check their perceptions of the most common challenges of translating legal contracts. As shown in the table, the total mean for all items is (3.39) and the standard deviation is (1.14) which means that the students have moderate perceptions towards the items of the questionnaire and that there are some items that are highly approved by the students and other items that are moderately approved by the students.
Out of the (15) items, there are (4) items that are highly agreed by the students and got the highest mean scores, ranging between (3.76 -3.45). These (4) items are "The translation of binomial expressions and parallel structures is difficult in legal contracts" with a mean score (3.76), "The translation of legal texts from and to Arabic and English is difficult" with a mean score (3.56), "The structure of legal sentences is quite long and difficult when translating legal contracts" with a mean score (3.55), and "The translation of multiple negatives is difficult in legal contracts" with a mean score (3.45).
Secondly, the findings showed that the Saudi translation students consider the following issues as challenges when they translate legal contracts; legal text layout ( The above results show that the Saudi translation students encounter a difficulty in the translation of legal contracts mainly because they find a difficulty in the translation of legal binominal expressions and parallel structures, a difficulty in the structure of legal sentences that are long, a difficulty in the translation of multiple negatives, and that the legal text layout constitutes a difficulty when translating legal texts. These findings correspond with the findings of Abu-ghararah (2017) and Al Aqad (2014) who concluded that the complex legal sentences and expressions are major challenges to Saudi translation students. Also, these findings match with the results of Al-Ahdal et al (2017) who conveyed that the structure of legal texts and the interrelated negatives are major difficulties for Saudi translators.
On the other hand, the Saudi translation students expressed that they encounter some other difficulties while translating legal contracts such as the translation of words and expressions like hereinafter and hereto, the translation of doublets, the translation culture-specific legal terms, and the tenses involved in legal contracts. This is supported by the findings of Atari (2005) confusing legal words and expressions and doublets are difficult to understand and translate by legal translators. On the other hand, Bostanji (2010) provided similar findings that the tenses and grammar of legal texts make it difficult to translate unless the translator has robust knowledge of both the target and source language.
One major challenge represented in this study is the culture-specific terms that constitute a major difficulty for Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts. This finding is also supported by other previous researchers such as Elmahdi (2016) and El-Sadik (2018) and Frade (2015) who concluded that cultural knowledge is essential when translating legal texts. Also, Jabak et al (2016) reported that each there are cultural differences between the English and Arabic languages which should be well considered when translating legal texts.
The variances between the legal system in Arab countries and English countries makes it difficult or even impossible to translate legal terms between this language pair. Atari (2005) reports that that the concept of legal system relates to the content and nature of law. Bostanji (2010) explains that legal English is related to the common law where concepts can be understood in the context of common law only. The legal Arabic is usually associated with the two main sources of legislation which are Quran and Sunnah.  Table 3 shows the responses of Saudi translation students to the questionnaire items that check the strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the challenges of translating legal contracts. As shown in the table, the total mean for all items is (3.33) and the standard deviation is (1.20) which means that the students have moderate perceptions towards these items and that there are some items that are highly approved by the students and other items that are moderately approved by the students. These results demonstrate that the Saudi translation students mainly depend on parallel texts and Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools in order to overcome the difficulties they face when they translate legal contracts. Also, it is shown that the Saudi translation students resort to Google translation, legal dictionaries, legal drafters and colleagues are major aids or strategies to help them translate legal contracts.
These findings correspond with the findings of Khaydarova (2019) which concluded that CAT tools and Google translation are important and easy aids used by legal translators who find a difficulty in composing complex legal structures between two languages. Also, Elmahdi (2016) recommended that translation students should be trained on legal translation by using comparative legal texts in order to know how translation is made and to parallel the two translate texts in terms of expressions, structures, and meaning.
The other strategies used by translation students such as legal drafters, colleagues, and dictionaries are also used, but less preferred by the students because they are time-consuming, costly, and, sometimes, far-reaching. This is supported by El-Sadik (2018) who reported that translators should be exposed to various legal texts translated by professional translators with a view to enhancing their performance and that translators should consult the relevant resources whether they are the experts or online resources.

Conclusion and Implications
Several challenges and strategies have been shown to be used by Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts. The translation of binominal expressions, the structure of legal sentences, the translation of multiple negatives and parallel structure, and the legal text layout are the major challenges that encounter Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts. Also, words and expressions such as hereinafter and hereto, doublets, culture-specific legal terms, tenses, French and Latin words, punctuation and capitalization, modal verbs, equivalents, legal concepts, and legal abbreviations are other challenges that encounter Saudi translation students when translating legal contracts.
On the other hand, parallel texts, CAT tools, and Google translation have been reported as strategies used by Saudi translation students to overcome the difficulties they face when they translate legal contracts. Also, legal dictionaries, legal drafters, and colleagues are also used by Saudi translation students to translate legal contracts.
In this study, the researcher introduced the challenges that the Saudi translation students encounter when translating legal contracts and the strategies they use to overcome such challenges. Therefore, it has practical implications for improving translation syllabus, translation pedagogy, textbooks designers, and translation teachers. The results may help translation syllabus-designers, textbook writers and decision-makers to arrange some training courses which help translation to improve their professional skills. The legal translation courses and training should be organized by the professional individuals in both translation and law. Because having knowledge and legal background can help in overcoming the legal contracts translation in particular, and generally the legal translation challenges. Before starting to translate the legal documents, translators should have sufficient information about the legal systems of the source and target languages. Also, a collaborative role should be created between legal translator and legal drafters which can be effective in dealing with such challenges.