ABSTRACT
For all their many achievements, translators have yet to dissipate the doubts society entertains about their work. The proverb traduttore traditore continues to undermine the very idea of translation in the eyes of many. From the beginning, however, one critical issue has challenged translators: should they translate literally or freely in order best to achieve ‘equivalence’? Whichever way they choose, will the source text and the target text ultimately be ‘equivalent’? Ought they to be equivalent? When the field of translation is law, the issue of equivalence becomes particularly crucial.
