When you Utter Twice, you may not translate Twice: On the English-Spanish Translation Alternatives of Paired Expressions in Divorce Decrees

Acting in the capacity as both official sworn translators and university professors, we have been witnessing to the issue that legal documents are troublesome specialised instruments with a relevant rate of paired expressions. The same could be said of Divorce Decrees, either issued in the UK or in the US, since they provide us with a significant diversity of doublet and triplet expressions. Hence, they pose a threat for translation trainees, and even for professional translators, since they can resort to somewhat literal translations that might not prove as fluent as the source text. Additionally, most of these paired expressions are not quoted in specialized dictionaries; and the ones rendered tend to be too literal translations as well.For the reasons abovementioned, this article reports on the translation of 10 English doublets, and triplets, drawn from a legal corpus of 20 Divorce Decrees: 10 North American, and 10 British. Our main contribution relies on the fact that we do not only provide with rather literal translations but also with cultural equivalent ones, probing how the search for legal parallel documents is of utmost importance. Additionally, we have unveiled how the Spanish language trend is towards simple, and clearer legal expressions.