ABSTRACT
For the lay translator, the many genres of official, legal and business text can be just as disconcerting as scientific and technological ones – in fact, possibly even more so. For example, it is easy to take official documents such as certificates for granted, but these documents usually have a format and layout specific to the genre, and use a specialist register, which contains technical terms, abbreviations and acronyms, in addition to personal data. In this chapter, we shall examine three areas that are the bread and butter of much translation work: administrative documents, and examples of legal and economic texts. Clearly, these examples and the discussions on approaching translation in these areas represent just the tip of the iceberg, and are intended merely to give a general idea of the kind of characteristics and challenges that such texts present.
