Introduction

In applied linguistics research, syntactic complexity has been used extensively as a measure to capture the complexities of academic writing and texts produced by L2 English writers. Syntactic complexity focuses on the length of the unit of production, the extent of clausal embedding, types of structures, and the nuanced nature of the structures within the production units (Lu, 2011, p. 36). In his paper on Arabic-English bi-directional translation, Al-Jabr (2006, p. 206) directs our attention to three key features that are argued to make up syntactic complexity in the translation domain. These include the linguistic features of a given language (e.g., preference for coordination/subordination), the genre of the text (e.g., legal/journalistic writing) and the lexical or grammatical preferences of the translators.

Legal translation is known as the subgenre of TS. Likewise, the complexity of the language of law warrants further investigation as legal texts have increasingly begun to find their way into the social arena. For instance, in recent years, legal translated texts have started to be published, circulated and read at international organizations, in public services and in the private sector (Biel et al., 2019). Legal translation, which is the subject of this paper, implies the “language of the law of England, America” (Tiersma, 2008, p. 7; Giczela-Pastwa, 2019; Afzaal, 2022), of other countries in which English is an official language and of countries that interact internationally within the arenas of business, international affairs and trade.

The present study sought empirically informed insights into the legal translation of company laws while comparing Chinese-translated corpora with existing British corpus and Hong Kong Company translated laws in syntactic complexity. The focus was on the legal translation and plain structure used by non-native English translators of legal terms in Hong Kong and China. With the research gap and widespread usage of LT in mind, the study’s goal was to identify the elements that impact legal translation, compare legal translated texts with non-translated materials and determine how far legal correspondence translation has made communication effective. Ramos and Cerutti (2022) suggest that “due to the expansive nature of the legal system and its various subfields and crossing conceptual networks, which address almost every facet of human existence, legal writings cover a wide range of topics conceptually”, (p. 22).

More broadly, this paper examines the syntactic structure of languages used in legal translated texts and investigates whether translated texts and translation norms through the application of the analytic lens of Kachru’s (1985) Three Circles Model of World Englishes and norm orientation) interact and experience a transformation. Kachru’s Three Circles model provides a theoretical underpinning to categorize the regions based on the English Language spoken in these countries. For instance, the inner circle offers insights from the region of English native speakers such as people of the United Kingdom or the USA. The outer circle focuses on the circle includes countries under the direct control of the UK as colonies where English is the official language. Lastly, the expanding circle focuses on the foreign language as norm-dependent and mainly depends on the inner circle.

Therefore, the study undertakes plain language because plain English is an initiative that emphasizes the accessibility of communication. Even a person who is not trained in law should understand what is being said in a contract, not just the legal professionals who are drafting it. The study also highlights the difficulty of archaic legal jargon and complex syntax of legal texts and advocates using plain language, using words that everyone can comprehend (Mattila, 2016; Adler, 2012, Yu, 2021).

Studies of syntactic complexity in translation

A large body of literature on syntactic complexity studies has investigated the academic writing of L2 and L1 learners in terms of syntactic complexity. Still, fewer studies have provided insights into the use of syntactic complexity in translated texts produced by non-native English speakers. As part of his research, Lu et al. (2020) looked at the indicators of syntactic complexity in three components that were employed in this study for instance, the Biber Tagger proposed by Biber et al., (1999), the Coh-Metrix proposed by McNamara et al., (2014), and the L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer initiated by (Lu, 2010). In addition, Lu (2010) created the L2SCA, which uses 14 metrics to computerize syntactic complexity analysis of L2 English texts in the target language. Pallotti (2015) considers complexity as polysemous in second language acquisition, and Bulté and Housen, 2012) define complexity as cognitive or linguistic. Lu (2017) defined complexity in syntactic structures ‘as the diversity and level of sophistication of syntactic structures used in textual creation’, (p. 5, 2017).

Scholars in the field of legal translation have demonstrated a particular interest in the processes of multilingual legislative drafting that are utilized in various organizations on both the national and international levels (Dillion, 2022). According to Mancilla et al. (2015), non-native speakers employ more coordinating and complicated phrases but far less subordinated, than native speakers, even though expert non-native speakers writing approaches native speaker writing in terms of the quantity of compliance. Ansarifar et al. (2018) touched on the phrasal complexity within the abstract sections of theses produced by L1 learners. They (2018) further identified that “the phrasal complexity, measured using four phrasal modification indices, are the lowest in master’s theses and highest in published RAs, and concluded that academic writing becomes more complex with writer expertize (p. 12)”. In addition, another study by Song and Wang (2019) compared abstracts written in English of doctoral theses by L1 Chinese and L1 English students. The results of their study reported less use of subordination than L1 English students.

According to Wu et al. (2020), “ELF writers utilize sentences and clauses that are longer than those used by L1 English writers, (p. 12)”. On the other hand, a recent study by the authors of Yin et al. (2021) investigated differences in engagement with syntactic complexity between emerging and experienced international publication authors in seven research article (RA) part-genres and presented practical implications of syntactic complexity in second language writing programs. At the same time, this study is distinct in that it examines the length of legal texts at the word and sentence level to determine the complexity of legal writings. Liu and Afzaal (2021) investigated the simplification hypotheses in corpus-based translation studies that should be approached from the perspective of syntactic complexity. Two comparable corpora are used in this study: the English monolingual part of COCE (Corpus of Chinese English) and the native English corpus of FLOB (French Language and Literature Corpus) (Freiburg-LOB Corpus of British English).

Syntactic complexity and legal translation

Although the foci of the legal translation have not only proliferated in the last decade but also increasingly widened their focus due to diverse implications, the legal system comprises its own system, terminologies, axiology, and boundaries to shape their concepts (Łucja Biel, 2017). In this sense, it is necessary to investigate the legal translation of company laws in non-native English-speaking countries. Besides, Maaß & Rink (2021) propose that legal communication requires some linguistic and specific jargon knowledge to understand the legal terms. As legal communication is technical, it has several characteristic features useful for communication between experts. Also, when familiar persons are addressed in specific legal terms, such syntactic forms constitute accessibility barriers (Rink, 2020, 117). Perhaps, the language complexity reveals the ability to use a wide and varied range of sophisticated structures and vocabulary. Therefore, language plays a significant role in legal correspondence; however, on the other hand, translation is inextricably connected to language and translation.

The languages contribute significantly to law correspondence, from legislation to legal documents and translation to interpretation of legal language, rules, and correspondence. A comparative approach to legal studies is undoubtedly not a new marvel. Biel et al. (2019) consider ‘legal translation and interpretation an interdisciplinary area of linguistic practice’, (p .7, 2019). Moreover, in corpus linguistics, the phenomenon of legal translation has already been expanded for the last four years. The research in legal translation has achieved a significant pace in recent years.

Although some prior studies have discussed the simplification of legal translation (Biel et al., 2019; Biel, 2016; Bolton, 2009), there is a dire need to examine the complexity of translated texts, legal documents, and correspondence. Furthermore, as the legal discourse is always at par with the approach of an ordinary person, translation makes it easier for the public. In this sense, it is necessary to examine the syntactic complexity of legal translation to unveil the linguistic structure to maximize competency in legal translation works.

Legal translation refers to translating legal documents and companies’ laws to make the text understandable and clear. Previously, Biel’s studies (2014: pp. 36–48) examined the phraseological continuum in the language of the law, which accounts for non-terminological categories that are statistically significant in the genre of legislation. Furthermore, she (2018) says that a few types of research have been reported while incorporating corpus-based methodology in the field of legal translation (Biel, 2018, p. 34). With the advent of corpus-based studies, applying corpora in legal translation brings fruitful results (e.g., Biel, 2015, 2018; Pontrandolfo, 2011; Trklja, 2017). In translation workflow, numerous small-scale corpus-based studies of legal translations have been conducted in Chinese-English legal translation (e.g., Li and Wang 2013), which have not been compared to other European languages.

The legal translation helps readers understand the complexity and ambiguous nature of legal discourse practised in courtrooms. English is taken as an official and second Language in Hong Kong, whereas English is taken as a Foreign Language in China. Consequently, these investigations are worthwhile to pursue because they will aid in discovering translation conventions that function both in the networks of translation and in the cognitive act of translations (cf. Toury, 1995; Xiao and Hu, 2015; Eagleson, 2014). Laviosa’s (2002) study, based on the analytical framework of linguistic variety, sentence length and information capacity to measure simplification, recorded that translated versions of texts have restricted lexical variety, and the ratio between content and function words remains low.

The study is significant for two reasons: many studies conducted in the Chinese-English translation background followed qualitative approaches in translation despite some recent research using corpus-based quantitative techniques. This paper analyzes the syntactic complexity of legal translation corpora. Therefore, this study identifies the existing gap in Chinese-English legal translation research in several areas. Thus, the study fills the gap as no parallel contrastive study has been conducted in the legal discourse regarding syntactic complexity.

Finally, the current study adopts a corpus-based contrastive analysis of legal translation to analyze the syntactic complexity in two translated texts. We take syntactic complexity as a theoretical framework to determine how translated texts and their norms have affected the production of legal texts in plain English in Hong Kong and native English-speaking countries.

The present study

The present study contributes to the body of scholarship that analyzes the syntactic features of translated law texts. More specifically, this study seeks to empirically inform insights into the legal translation of company laws while comparing Chinese-translated corpora with existing British corpus and Hong Kong Company translated laws in terms of syntactic complexity. The study is of worth because legal language is not static but dynamic, and legal translation shares characteristics with other translation activities such as “a norm-governed human and social behavior, a text-producing act of legal communication” (Cao, 2013, p. 422; Chesterman, 1993, 2000; Dullion, 2022).

This paper mainly focuses on the legal translation and plain structure of non-native English translators of legal terms in Hong Kong and China. As the previous studies based on syntactic complexity covered how ELF writers engage syntactic complexity differently, this study will fill the existing gap, how non-native English speakers engage syntactic complexity in their translations. As a result, the current study contributes significantly to the body of knowledge on legal translated corpora writing syntactic complexity by addressing these research gaps.

Research questions

The following questions were addressed in this study:

RQ1) How do the translated and non-translated legal text, as reflected in the Hong Kong Government’s websites, differ from across the two regions of China, Hong Kong and the UK, regarding syntactic complexity?

RQ2) If the differences or similarities are significant, can they be used in conventions of plain English movement?

Methods

The Corpus

The corpus of the study comprises the translated texts of UK company law (the inner circle) and legal translated texts of the Mainland and the Hong Kong (the outer circle) as per the domain of plain English movements. The data of the UK is monolingual, whereas sub-corpora is bilingual aligned at the sentence level. The Hong Kong corpus includes the legal texts of companies’ ordinance executed in 1932 and modification of this law in 1984, 2012 and 2014, respectively. At the same time, the corpus of Mainland China includes the legal texts of company law for the years 1993, 1999, 2004, and 2006.

In addition, the study employed Kachru’s model to set up the corpus in our research. Braj Kachru’s (1985) idea of three circles (the inner circle, the outer circle, and the expanding circle) presents the notion of English language variations across various cultures. In a similar domain, these circle offers to measure English Language’s spread, acquisition, and functional patterns in socio-cultural settings (Kachru 1985, 12). Kachru (1985) proposes that the inner circle works for the countries where English is taken as the mother tongue, and the outer circle represent countries and regions where the English Language is taken as a second Language (L2). The following figure describes the modification of laws in different stages in parallel-comparable company law corpus (Fig. 1).

Fig. 1
figure 1

Kachru’s plain English circles and the corpus.

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Syntactic complexity analysis

The study employed an L2 Syntactic Complexity Analyzer (SCA) (Lu, 2010) to analyze the corpus. Table 1 accounts for fourteen syntactic complexity features, including five dimensions. Lu (2010) categorizes the syntactic complexity analyzer as advanced writers of English. It was validated with the produced English corpus of Chinese learners, which consisted of 3554 essays written by English majors studying at universities in China. Two different coders each annotated ten different articles to test the analyzer’s reliability. SCA classifies syntactic measures into five kinds, e.g., three metrics are related to the analysis of length of production at the clause level, sentential, or T-unit level: mean size of clause (MLC), mean length of sentence (MLS), and mean length of T-unit (MLT); sentence complexity ratio; the amount of subordination, the amount of coordination, and the relationship between particular syntactic structures and larger production units, i.e., complex nominals per clause (CN/C), complex nominals per T-unit (CN/T), and verb phrases per T-unit (VP/T).

Table 1 Lu’s (2010) features of syntactic complexity.
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Results

This section provides empirical data and discusses the questions formulated in section 1. The average difference can be used as an indicator of difference to understand the simplification level of the translation. So, the average mark is the value of p should be less than 0.005 (p < 0.005) in the features of syntactic complexity.

The results show a statistically significant difference in the fourteen elements of syntactic complexity of the Hong Kong company law dataset. As can be seen, the value of p of two components such as MLS and CT_T are not significant. However, other features are substantial. For example, the new dataset Cap622, such as MLS, MLT, MLC, CS, VP_T, C_T, C_T, DC_C, DC_T, CT_T, CN, CN_C are simplified than the old version dataset, which shows the importance of translation of legal discourses in plain English. The study results show that the newest edition of the UK corpus (UK 2006) contains 270,597 words, whilst the Hong Kong version contains 210,902 words, making it the largest in the world.

The new version of UK company law shows a significant difference in syntactic complexity. Table 2 shows that the results comprised two phases, the version of UK1985 and UK2006. The old version is more complex than the new version presented in 2006. Out of fourteen features of syntactic complexity, only two features such as MLC, i.e., 119.73 and CN_C, which is 119.01, show no difference. The other twelve features in the written forms of company laws are found to be significantly different from each other. For example, MLS, MLT, CS, VPT, CT, DC_C, DC_T, TS, CT_T, CP_T, CP_C, and CN_T are more straightforward than the old version of company law. The value of p is found to be more significant in two cases MLC (p = 0.961 > than p = 0.005) and CN_C (0.9, which is more significant than 0.005).

Table 2 Comparison of HK syntactic complexity in HK legal translations.
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Figure 2 shows the overall comparison of Z-score in the HK, Mainland and UK company laws corpora. The figure shows that the Hong Kong company law results reveal that comparing the old and new versions HK corpus, the two key features, such as MLC, C_S, C_T and CT_T, are found to be simpler than the version of the new one (Cap32). On the contrary, the feature T_S remains different, and Cap 32 is significantly different from the old version of company law, 50.38.

Fig. 2
figure 2

Comparison of syntactic complexity features across Mainland and UK.

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Unlike the other two datasets, the mainland dataset is quite the opposite of all syntactic features. Results show that the old version of company law shows MLC, CP_T, and CP_C are only simpler versions. However, the remaining features, such as MLS, MLT, CS, VP_T, C_T, DC_C, and T_S, are complex syntactic features. Whereas the new version mainland has variations, e.g., MLS, MLT, CS, VP_T, C_T, DC_C, and T_S are more straightforward than the other features such as MLC, CP_T, and CP_C. The comparison is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3
figure 3

HK company law and syntactic complexity features.

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Table 3 shows differences across three regions and different forms of company law corpora as the statistics show a significant difference in Hong Kong company law between the old and new versions. Whiteman (2000) highlights how the scientific community is increasingly emphasizing plain English communication with the non-scientific public and amongst scientists from other fields to improve the understanding of scientific discoveries by the general public, (MacCormick, 1998).

Table 3 Syntactic complexity in HK legal translations in mainland.
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Discussion

As was just mentioned, the primary objectives of this investigation were as follows: Investigating both translated and untranslated versions of legal texts was the initial goal of this project. The second step is to determine what, in terms of accessibility, has changed since the beginning of the movement toward using plain language. Many studies suggest that legal language deviates quite heavily from plain English and has been and will continue to be more challenging to understand than standard English. This is in line with common intuition and plain-language advocates, as well as recent findings regarding private legal documents (Martinez et al., 2022; Martinez et al., 2022; Jiang et al., 2019; Yan, 2013), which suggest that the language of private legal documents is difficult to understand, (Martinez et al., 2022, p. 13; Lastres-López, 2019).

Overall, striking patterns emerge from the findings of the legal translation of the people of three regions in terms of syntactic complexity and legal communication in plain English. First, it has been noticed that ambiguous nominal and hypotactic structures contribute to a high number of propositions in each phrase, which requires a high level of cognitive processing from the text readers. Rink (2020) argues that ‘when people are addressed in this manner, the use of syntactic forms such as these is a barrier to their accessibility, (p. 117). The syntactic degree of hypotaxis and complicated phrase structures in all source texts is quite difficult. As a result, there is an extremely high level of information density, making it difficult for text users to process and exceed the processing capabilities of those with communication impairments (see Hansen-Schirra et al., 2020b; Gutermuth, 2020; Norris and Ortega, 2009; Ortega, 2003).

The study highlights the differences in the company law of the three regions regarding the syntactic complexity of legal translation. Therefore, based on the finding, there is a significant difference across the three areas in terms of syntactic complexity. Out of fourteen features, the UK and Hong Kong company laws are identified as more spartan than the mainland company law. Translation of legal documents makes the language understandable for the typical reader. However, people usually need help understanding legal terms or legal jargon (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4
figure 4

Syntactic complexity in HK legal translations.

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In addition, the results show that the UK is the Inner Circle and is responsible for establishing language standards. However, while following these new norms, it has been observed through the statistical analysis that a new version of norms is comparatively simplified and comprises plain English in legal drafting. On the contrary, Hong Kong, as a colony of the UK, has been impacted by the outer circle, but it still faces some of the influences of the Inner Circle.

The general questions underlying the analysis above were how the translated and non-translated legal texts as reflected in the company law differ across the three regions of China, Hong Kong and the UK and to what extent plain English helps the people understand legal communication. It is widely known that the present Plain English Movement advocates for legal papers to be simpler and more understandable to the common person. This study conforms that plain English helps people to understand the complex and ambiguous terms of legal discourse.

The study of Maaß & Rink (2021) asserts that “plain-language texts do not necessitate the employment of parallel standard text offers but can stand on their own and be read by all types of lay users in a context of expert-lay communication, (p. 13)”. This type of language is understandable to lay people and can help people with communication problems communicate more effectively. As a result, it may not have the action-enabling potential that is required for inclusion if it is only used as a basis for information retrieval. As a result of their familiar structure (both syntactic and lexical), simple writings assist many lay people in comprehending the linguistic intricacy of legal jargon (Adler, 2012; Asprey, 2010; Cheek, 2010; Cornelius, 2015; Dyer, 2017).

The trend of translating legal discourse made a tremendous change in legal communication. Such a movement started from the Inner Circle has also impacted countries and regions of the Outer Circle. When creating legislation, basic and uncomplicated vocabulary is used to ensure that the law is as precise and substantive as feasible without detracting from precision or substance (Law Drafting Division, 2012: p. 88). More specifically, it provides certain recommendations for crafting legislative text that is simple to comprehend. The impact of the Plain English Movement has also had an impact on the legal writing standards in Hong Kong, as previously stated. When compared to the United Kingdom, the Plain English Movement has made such an impact on Hong Kong that it has even gone as far as excessive. This tendency is supported by our results regarding the employment of conditioned grammatical constructions in this study.

In terms of syntactic level, the language of the Inner circle’s legal matters comprises complex phrase structures, more particularly, complex nominal phrases and complex hypotaxis. Such structure remains outside of the approach of users of the Outer circle with communication impairments (Gutermuth, 2020). Hansen-Schirra et al. (2020a) also explain that the language of the Inner circle includes a high share of complex syntactic structures that are typical for legal expert-expert communication. Therefore, the translation of companies’ law removes the risk for unsuccessful interaction with users who are laypersons in the Outer Circle and Inner circle.

At region levels, there were significant differences between Hong Kong, Mainland, and UK in the translation. However, the findings for Hong Kong are primarily indicative of the differences because of the adaptation of plain English for legal communication, which enables lay people to understand the complexity of sentences, phrases, or even technical terms of companies’ laws.

Regarding RQ1 and RQ2, our findings suggest that the plain English movement has understandable norms for layman language users. Bonsall et al. (2017) argue that plain English writing exists, but language researchers generally describe plain English as a way to use language to communicate information to the reader effectively, (Frade, 2012, 2016; Navarro and Rodríguez, 2014). Overall, the evidence from Tables 2 and 3 illustrate that sentences are packed with too much legal jargon, which can be hard to understand. In addition, these sentences often contain excessive jargon and legalese, and syntactic complexity measures of companies’ laws of Hong Kong region (Outer Circle) are found simpler and less complex than Mainland.

The findings of this study show several implications for syntactic complexity research; the results of the comparative analysis of legal translations of the three regions differed in many ways. Remarkably, the legal translation of Hong Kong and China significantly differed. The UK’s plain English movement helps people understand the complexity of legal discourses. These differences indicate that the translation experience of legal laws of companies enhances the understanding level and improves communication performance. Secondly, the results revealed that MLC, CP_T, and CP_C are only simpler versions. However, the remaining features, such as MLS, MLT, CS, VP_T, C_T, DC_C, and T_S, are complex in terms of syntactic features. Whereas the new version mainland has variations, e.g., MLS, MLT, CS, VP_T, C_T, DC_C, and T_S are simpler than the other features such as MLC, CP_T, and CP_C. Based on the results of HK company laws, the study suggests that China’s company should be translated into English to make the accessibility of laws to ordinary people.

Conclusion

The study investigated the translated and non-translated legal text while applying the theoretical underpinning of syntactic complexity and plain English movement with a particular focus on whether, as a result of the beginning of the plain-language movement, legal language becomes easier to understand for the general public. So, in terms of research question 1, the communicative and functional importance of syntactic complexity has expanded from the horizons of L2 writing. Multilingual writers must develop linguistically, function in instructional contexts well and respond appropriately to the different demands of valued genres, tasks, and contents that comprise their varied educational experience. Using a corpus of company laws carefully sampled, this study examined the differences in emerging legal translation of three regions’ engagement with syntactic complexity.

Our analysis revealed significant differences between Hong Kong and China regions concerning the syntactic complexity of different syntactic features. The study concludes that there have been efforts made to simplify the language in the UK and Hong Kong, and there have even been regulations integrated into law in both legal systems to ensure the simplicity of the legal language so that it could be understandable for lay people. Despite these efforts, it is still difficult for a layperson to understand it, and the reason for this is the complexity of the law as a whole. For example, it is only sometimes feasible to record a precise definition of a legal term in a way that makes it plain and avoids ambiguity.

In addition, the study highlights that the Hong Kong version of the legal text is simpler than the mainland legal texts, which ultimately confirms that plain English helps people comprehend legal jargon easily. Eagleson (2014) claims that ‘Plain English is a supportive movement which is simple and straightforward, and it uses only as many words as are essential. It is the language that avoids obscurity, an exaggerated vocabulary, and a complex sentence-construction structure. In no way does it resemble baby speak or a simplified form of the English Language. The use of plain English allows writers to focus their audience’s attention on the message rather than getting sidetracked by sophisticated terminology. As a result, they ensure that their target audience receives the message without difficulty (p. 23).

Finally, the study recommends that researchers use syntactic complexity measures when studying the implications for clarity in firms’ legal discourse. At the same time, our archival evidence suggests that, in certain instances, quantity-based readability measures may also help explain specific outcomes for understanding legal jargon in the regions of the outer circle. Further work into the validity of these theories could give insight into how effectively to persuade legislators to integrate the results of our and similar studies and help ease the mismatch between the ubiquity and implausibility of legal texts in the modern period.