Re-presenting the “Real”

Abstract From a vision of language as representation, both translation and legal studies have undergone significant changes in recent years which have allowed them to question core concepts like neutrality and universality. Increasing attention has been paid to the influence of ideology, position, gender, race, hegemony and marginalization in the understanding, reading and rendering of a text. This paper focuses on some of the problems and ethical dilemmas inherent to and often hidden in legal translation, drawing on Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus and capital and on his understanding of legal texts as signs of authority aimed at being believed and obeyed. It contributes to the articulation of the tenets of a new concept of responsibility which arises from an awareness of the ideological intricacies of meaning and the influence of power relations in the understanding of texts.