FUNCTIONALIST APPROACH TO TEACHING LEGAL TRANSLATION

The paper deals with some problems of legal translation with a particular regard to the skopos theory approach, with a special emphasis on the practical implications of these problems to legal translation instruction. The author presents the circumstances in the Republic of Croatia over the preceding several years pertaining to the activities of legal translation for the purpose of accession to the European Union. This particularly refers to the translating of the acquis communautaire into the Croatian language. Possible functions of translated legal and legislative texts are analysed from this viewpoint, as well as various possible related approaches to solving translation problems. The author pays special attention to issues in translating cultural elements, considering that they tend to show special sensitivity to the function of a translated text. Finally, practical application of the above considerations regarding legal translation is presented in the last part of the paper. Having taught courses in legal translation to lawyers aspiring to work as legal translators within EU bodies, the author presents the contents of the courses and some methods of teaching which take account of the skopos theory, as well as the reception of such teaching methods and their outcomes.