Legal Translation and Terminology in the Irish Free State, 1922-1937
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DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Legal Translation and Terminology in the Irish Free State, 1922-1937 McGrory, Orla Award date: 2018 Awarding institution: Queen's University Belfast Link to publication Terms of use All those accessing thesis content in Queen’s University Belfast Research Portal are subject to the following terms and conditions of use • Copyright is subject to the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988, or as modified by any successor legislation • Copyright and moral rights for thesis content are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners • A copy of a thesis may be downloaded for personal non-commercial research/study without the need for permission or charge • Distribution or reproduction of thesis content in any format is not permitted without the permission of the copyright holder • When citing this work, full bibliographic details should be supplied, including the author, title, awarding institution and date of thesis Take down policy A thesis can be removed from the Research Portal if there has been a breach of copyright, or a similarly robust reason. 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Sep. 2021 Legal Translation and Terminology in the Irish Free State, 1922-1937 A thesis submitted in the fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy to the School of Arts, English and Languages Queen’s University Belfast by Órla McGrory Master of Arts in Irish Translation Studies, QUB Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Law & Léann an Aistriúcháin, NUIG 2018 ABSTRACT This thesis explores the role and impact of Rannóg an Aistriúcháin - the Oireachtas Government Translation section - on English-Irish legal translation and terminology, with particular focus on the period 1922-1937; a period bookended by the establishment of the Irish Free State and the enactment of Bunreacht na hÉireann (the Constitution of Ireland) in 1937. It aims to assess the efficacy and consistency of the translation strategies and Irish legal terms employed by Rannóg an Aistriúcháin, and to investigate how modern translation theory – specifically equivalence theory – may be applied to English-Irish legal translation as a whole. While a semantic study of the English and Irish versions of the amended 1937 Constitution has previously been carried out (Ó Cearúil, 1999), there has yet to be any specific study of other translated English-Irish legislative material within the Irish Free State or, indeed, of any laws translated within the Rannóg. This is an area which holds great research potential as regards assessing the efficacy of a particular body of translations, as the position of the Irish language in the Republic of Ireland is a unique one. Not only is Irish an official language of the European Union, but it enjoys constitutional status as the National and First Official language of the Republic of Ireland, with Article 25.4.6º of the Irish Constitution 1937 providing that: ‘In case of conflict between the texts of a law enrolled under this section in both the official languages, the text in the national language shall prevail’. In other words, should the Irish translation deviate in any way from its English legislative counterpart, it is the Gaelic translated legislation - along with all its construed connotations and associations - which has the upper hand. With this reasoning in mind, this thesis takes a corpus of EN-GA legislative material translated by Rannóg an Aistriúcháin during the period 1922-1937, from which legal terms are chosen for analysis and qualitatively and semantically assessed in the context of Equivalence translation theory and legal translation. Ultimately, this thesis provides a new critical assessment of the reliability of Irish language legal terminology in primary legislation from this period; an analysis of how Equivalence theory may be applied to EN-GA legal translation as a whole; and provides some guidelines for future endeavours in English-Irish legal translation and terminology. ACKNOWLEDEMENTS Thanks, first and foremost, are due to my doctoral supervisors – to Prof. Greg Toner who has been of invaluable support and unfailing in generosity with his time and his insights since becoming my primary supervisor in 2015, and to Dr Charlie Dillon, my original primary supervisor, who was instrumental in aiding my research proposal towards securing a research grant, and who was of great support in my first two years. To them, and to my secondary supervisor Dr Marcas Mac Coinnigh for his insights and advice, I am greatly indebted. Likewise, to the staff of the School of Modern Languages, particularly Sonia Rose, Maria Meehan, and Lorraine Browne, for their patience and friendly support, I am truly grateful. Special thanks also to my PhD examiners, Prof. Mícheál Ó Mainnín and Prof. Liam Mac Mathúna, for getting me through a successful – and surprisingly enjoyable – viva. Secondly, I would like to acknowledge with thanks the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding my research project, and for granting me a travel scholarship which allowed me to carry out further research in the National Archives of Ireland and to partake in conferences in the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and in my alma mater, the National University of Ireland, Galway. I am grateful also to the staff of the library at Queen’s University Belfast, to John McDonough in the Oireachtas Library & Research Service, to Vivian Uíbh Eachach and particularly to Anne-Marie Dowling, Rannóg an Aistriúcháin, to Brian Ó Raghallaigh and Úna Bhreathnach in Fiontar, DCU, and to Gregory O’Connor in the National Archives of Ireland. All of the above have offered their time and expertise to answer questions which have been of great support in the completion of this thesis. To Fionnuala Nic Thom and Claire Kieran at An Droichead for keeping me in enough work to get me through my non-funded year, particularly, I am eternally grateful. Many friends have been generous in their support over the past years, by lending guidance, advice, and a listening ear over tea or a pint - particularly Eimear, Pádraig, David, Laura, and Jody at QUB, and outside the academy, Aisling, Tilly, and Elaine. Thanks to them for helping to keep me (fairly) sane. Finally, it is to my parents, Mary and Jim, and to my sisters Gemma, Tríona, Maria, and Aoife, that my greatest debt is due, for their patient, generous, and unfailing support from the beginning of my doctoral studies to their conclusion. This thesis is dedicated to them. i TABLE OF CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ..................................................................................................... 2 CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................... 16 Historical & Linguistic Background ...................................................................... 16 1.1. Historical Context ...................................................................................................... 16 1.2. Rannóg an Aistriúcháin: People and Method .......................................................... 19 1.2.1. Establishing the Translation Section .................................................................... 19 1.2.2. Rannóg an Aistriúchán and Irish language Terminology .................................... 23 1.3. Rannóg an Aistriúcháin: Contribution to Standardisation .................................... 27 1.3.1. Cló Gaelach Debate .............................................................................................. 27 1.3.2. Creating an Orthographical Standard ................................................................... 31 1.3.3. Creating a Grammatical Standard ........................................................................ 35 1.4. Terminology ............................................................................................................... 37 1.4.1. Introduction to Terminology ................................................................................ 37 1.4.2. Terminology Defined ........................................................................................... 38 1.4.3. The Development of (Legal) Terminology in Irish .............................................. 40 1.4.4. Irish language terminology pre-1922 ................................................................... 41 1.4.5. Irish language terminology 1922-1959 ................................................................ 42 1.4.6. Irish language terminology & Foclóir de Bhaldraithe, 1959 ............................... 50 1.4.7. An Buanchoiste Téarmaíochta, 1968 onward ...................................................... 52 CHAPTER TWO ..................................................................................................... 55 Theoretical Applications & Methodology .............................................................. 55 2.1. Equivalence and Translation