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Translation and Foreign Language Learning

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ArticleTranslation Theories and Skills http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.08.001

A Case Study of Legal Terms from 1615 to 2008

Jingning Weng

Shanghai Yidu Education and Training Co., Ltd., Shanghai 200000, China.

*Corresponding author: Jingning Weng

Published: July 29,2025

Abstract

The paper focuses on the translation of typical concepts. This study takes four phases of legal translation in China and typical legal terms as "right", "public law", and "state" on Chinese and Western legal translations from 1615 to 2008 as the research object. This study finds that the evolution of legal terminology translation chronologically documents the maturation of China’s jurisprudence as a discipline, simultaneously signaling a transformative societal shift from early susceptibility to cultural hegemony toward emphatic assertion of state sovereignty, while progressively tracing the deepening comprehension of individual juridical personhood.

Keywords

Legal terminology evolution; Sino-Western legal translation; Conceptual histori-ography

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How to cite this paper

A Case Study of Legal Terms from 1615 to 2008

How to cite this paper: Jingning Weng. (2025). A Case Study of Legal Terms from 1615 to 2008. Translation and Foreign Language Learning1(1), 1-7.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.26855/tfll.2025.08.001