INVESTIGATING FACTORS AFFECTING LEGAL ENGLISH TEACHING AND LEARNING FROM CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

Globalization promotes the deepening of cultural, economic and social trade, which requires the awareness of legal systems as well as the intercultural understanding. In this paper, the researcher investigated the impact of cultural interferences in available resources such as legal textbooks, legal dictionaries, or legal translation methods on the students’ effectiveness at Hanoi Law University through the secondary data research approach. The results indicate that the differences in Eastern and Western cultures produce great hindrance for teachers and students in teaching and learning legal English. The study also recommends that teachers and students need to have a deep understanding of legal knowledge, multi-cultures, writing styles, word equivalence between cultures, effective translation methods of legal documents. Besides, the results also suggest that there should be collaboration between legal experts, linguists, and teaching specialists when designing the curriculum. Teachers and learners need to use effective dictionaries and glossaries, and there should be a cultural comparison in the way of translating legal English in for the purpose of communication, instead of adhering to old legal English approach. The study would provide a useful reference for teachers, students, and researchers who want to learn more about cross-cultural communication in teaching English for specihc purposes in general and legal English in particular.