Wednesday, November 5, 2008

Rebuttable Presumption 反証可能な推定

I've been looking for a good way to express "rebuttable presumption" in Japanese and, with a little help from my officemate, I think I've got a good one that's going on the "to memorize" list.

I had initially translated "to create a rebuttable presumption" as

h 反論できる推定を生じる = (lit. "to create a presumption that can be rebutted").

I chose "反論" because that was the suru verb I had learned for "rebuttal." I also chose "推定" instead of "予断" because it seemed that, although both can mean "presumption," the latter seemed less common in the provisions in various treaties I looked at, and the definition on-line also gave me pause: 予断 【よだん】 (n,vs) guessing; prediction; conclusion.

HOWEVER, my coworker told me that "反論" is waaay too casual to be used in that phrase. This really surprised me, given the seemingly straightforward definition:

反論 【はんろん】 (n,vs) objection; refutation; rebuttal

(I guess it's true what they say about the straitlaced "quiet neighbor" types being the ones you have to be careful of...)

Still, I trust her sense and she recommended the following instead:

n 反証可能な推定を生じる = to create a refutable presumption (Works for me!)

反証 【はんしょう】 (n,vs) prove to the contrary; disprove; counter-evidence; refute
推定 【すいてい】 (n,vs) presumption; assumption; estimation
生じる 【しょうじる】 (v1,vi) to produce; to yield; to result from; to arise; to be generated

(In the treaty provisions I saw, the word 生ずる -- 【しょうずる】 (vz,vi) to cause; to arise; to be generated -- was used, but who am I to quibble? 生ずる seems too formal.)

e I was also glad to discover a new word in looking for the right one:

実証 【じっしょう】 (n,vs) actual, demonstrated proof

Good one!

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