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A Study of the E-C Translation for the Modal Verbs in the Berne Convention
HU Hong-ling
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5836/2018.03.012
South China Business College, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China
The Berne Convention plays a very important role in the protection of the copyright in its member states. Good Chinese translation for the Berne Convention will undoubtedly improve the implementation of it in China. One of the key factors that affect the translation of the Berne Convention is the translation for the modal verbs, because they are concerning the rights conferred to or obligations imposed on authors or countries of the Union. Based on the statistics of the modal verbs used in the Berne Convention, this paper discovers that “shall” and “may” are the most frequently used modal verbs among the ones in English language and they are translated into many types of phrases in Chinese, but not all of them are accurate or appropriate, because the expressions used in the Copyright Law of the People’s Republic of China to indicate rights, obligations or prohibitions are not all those that “shall” or “may” are translated into. Some suggestions can be put forward to improve the current Chinese translation for “shall” or “may” in the Berne Convention.
the Berne Convention, modal verbs, Chinese translations, suggestions, shall, may
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