The expression of the concepts of dolus and culpa in Chinese legal language: distinctive features and criticalities

The ‘migration’ of concepts from one language to another, which takes place in cultural exchange, frequently gives rise changes the target language, primarily involving lexical field. reception Romanist legal tradition China has led formation a specialized lexicon which, along with translation and production Roman law-related works, been subject constant growth. This kind terminological transposition often resulted emergence Chinese more than translatant for same Latin word. As concrete example this phenomenon, paper aims at providing synoptical overview rendering dolus culpa, two institutions also largely connected field commercial law. sources analyzed diachronic contrastive perspective range earliest manuals law published beginning twentieth century recent documents, translated or directly composed Chinese. More specifically, will try answer following questions: what is historical evolution main terms used express culpa? What are criteria adopted by translators/authors choosing these terms? features issues related linguistic institutions?As results study, attention be paid peculiarities concept that use different translatants: guoshi 过失 guocuo 过错. At time, another aspect on shed light existence plethora translatants (qizha 欺诈, guyi 故意, zhaqi 诈欺, etc.). In sense, hand, it shown how presence multiple acceptable useful when they shades meaning conveyed culpa cannot rendered means single each notions; other highlight necessity higher homogeneity standardization lexicon.