Modality in Legal Translation: A Corpus based Investigation of “Shall”

Abstract

This paper aims at analyzing semantic nuances of modality in Law-Translation focusing on modal verb shall in legal text in English and its translations in Urdu. Ambiguity inherent in the meanings of English modal verbs and the way they are translated into Urdu, create many issues to be explained. Almost all the modal verbs may, might, must, will, shall, should, would, can and could, are commonly used in conveying legal sense but their implications are different and varied. modal auxiliary verbs in English grammar. Punjab laws and their translation is from the Punjab Codes have been used as data. Ant Conc has been employed for gathering statistical values of the most frequent of the modal in the ST. It runs with its various meanings in the legal text and distinguishes it as formal language, a Register. The research has explored an intriguing presence of modal shall and variety of its Urdu translations that significantly resolve the ambiguity found in the use of modal shall. This disambiguates through Urdu translation in legal context, and can bring a propitious convenience for law users. This research unfolds the age-old ambivalence of legal text and brings a solacing opportunity for understanding legal sense with native or local cognition. It opens a new venue for linguists and corpus-based investigations in the field of law.