Thursday, February 13, 2014

Certified Translation of Texting for Legal cases

Technology also has an obvious effect in legal circles.


One notes, in old contracts, references made to the exclusive allowable communications between parties. Older contracts provide for letters, telex and telegrams. Of course, nowadays barely anybody uses telegrams and the telex is also a thing of the past. In the eighties, telecopiers (also referred as fax machines) made their ways into contracts, and email is now a rule.

In certain countries laws are not updated, and codes are literally interpreted. Believe it or not, Courts refuse to accept as evidence communications provided in newer technologies.

Such is not the case of the USA, where communications in most formats are allowed as evidence in Court cases.

We note, right now, increasing use of texting threads, or even facebook and other types of chatting (whatsapp, for instance), as evidence in litigations of all types. Of course, such communications in different languages must be translated, and that is where we come in.

Translating these types of communication has its challenges, though. For instance, there is excessive use of abbreviations in such communications, many of which are obscure. People also make up abbreviations which are not common place.

Additionally, emoticons are often used in such communications, which can lead to different interpretations of the text.

A further problem is the careless attitude exercised by people when texting or chatting. Sentences are often poorly constructed, often leading to ambiguous interpretation of the text. Normally, very few people do review texting or chatting before sending it, adding to further confusion.

PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS POST SHOULD NOT BE CONSTRUED AS LEGAL ADVICE OF ANY KIND.

http://www.legaltranslationsystems.com

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