The Waves Of Words: An Exploratory Study On Translation Strategies And Challenges In International Maritime Law

Abstract

The article examines the challenges and possible strategies involved in translating maritime law terminology, based on a contrastive analysis of the German provisions on maritime trade in the Handelsgesetzbuch and the Polish Kodeks morski. German legal language is characterized by high nominalization, compound nouns, and lexically encoded legal roles, which may lead to misinterpretation or unintended shifts in legal qualification if translated literally into Polish. By contrast, Polish maritime legislation tends to favor descriptive constructions, verbalization of duties, and explicit specification of legal effects. As a result, translators are often required to unpack German lexical structures and apply functional equivalence rather than literal translation. The paper discusses typical translational challenges related to bills of lading, maritime carriage contracts, risk transfer, and shipowner liability, and outlines possible translation strategies that help maintain terminological transparency, systemic coherence, and legal effectiveness. The analysis shows that maritime law can serve as a useful “translation laboratory” for examining terminological and functional equivalence in international legal communication, with implications for cross-border commercial and legal translation, where linguistic precision directly affects legal and financial outcomes.