El literalismo en la traducción de dicumentos jurídicos: una vía para su solución.

Having realized that both in theory and practice of legal translation literalism is still present, we think that it may be interesting to recall that a pragmatic translation of legal documents is the rule for the translator to follow. This pragmatic interpretation/translation of the legal document is the opposite of a literal interpretation/translation of such a document. We define a literal interpretation on the part of the translator as in fact abandoning his real task: that of interpreting the legal document as a whole. Although the theory of legal translation is starting to formulate such communicative principles in interpretation, it has not as yet found ways of fostering and stimulating such an attitude in the translator. We take the translation of private legal documents of the Common-law by way of example to illustrate both literal and pragmatic translation. We believe that the attitude and strategy proposed is to be taken into account not only by the expert translator but it is also to be taken into account by the non-expert translator, being a guide that that be explained and followed when teaching legal translation