Les compétences discursives et génériques dans la traduction des contrats de droit civil français et polonais

In the process of legal translation, different rules for editing individual genres are an important issue arising from cultural differences. Therefore, translator’s discursive and generic competences affect the quality of translation. Even if the knowledge of standards of the genre of target culture does not allow their direct application in the text of translation, a comparison of generic standards facilitates proper interpretation of the source text and editing the target text, thus allowing to achieve the intended communicative objective. The purpose of this article is to compare the legal discourse in highly routinised genres such as Polish and French contracts in the field of civil law. Based on the French school of discourse analysis, the study is designed to extract meanings which are not expressed directly, but are related to the function of a given text. Particular emphasis is placed on ways of expressing the performative nature of analysed genres and interpersonal relationships.