A Comparative Study of Chinese and Western Legal Language and Culture

This book involves a variety of aspects and levels, including the diachronic and synchronic dimensions. Law profoundly affects our daily lives, but its language and culture can at times be nearly impossible to understand. As a comparative study of Chinese and Western legal language and legal culture, this book investigates the similarities and differences of both sides and identifies their respective advantages and disadvantages. Accordingly, it considers both social and cultural functions, and both theoretical and practical values.

Firstly, the book addresses the differences, that is, the basic frameworks and disparities between the Chinese and Western legal languages and legal cultures. Secondly, it explores relevant changes over time, that is, the historical evolution and the basic driving forces that were at work before the Chinese and Western legal languages and cultures “met.” Lastly, the book elaborates on their fusion, that is, the conflicts and changes in Chinese and Western legal languages and cultures in China in the modern era, as well as the introduction, transplantation and transformation of Western legal culture.

Falian Zhang is Professor of Law at China University of Political Science and Law and President of the Chinese Association for Legal English Teaching and Testing . He is also Secretary-General of the Legal Culture Research Association of the Chinese Law Society, and Chief expert on major projects of the National Social Science Fund of China, and the member of the Legal English Translation Review Expert Committee of the Legal Work Committee of the National People's Congress. He has a varied background in education and his fields of research include Legal Language and Culture (Legal Translation), Legal Language Economics, Sino-US Relations, and Rule of Law Diplomacy. He has published, in recent years, over 50 papers in prominent journals and more than 30 books, including monographs, dictionaries and translations.