massive departure

[Aray]

Hola,
¿cómo traduciríais la siguiente oración: "the first ten words of the passage just quoted involve a massive departure from the respondent's case at trial..."?
Mi propuesta es la siguiente, aunque no comprendo muy bien "a massive departure": "las primeras diez palabras del párrafo que acabamos de mencionar implican una gran desviación del caso del demandado en el proceso...".
El párrafo anterior decía "the respondent's activities were not limited by his physical condition, but by his perception of his condition". Igual esto os ayuda algo más.
Espero que alguien me ayude. Muchas gracias.
Un saludo.

 

[Txiri]

In the respondent´s case at trial, a specific position was presented.

The massive departure is a radical change from the position previously presented, and these first ten words signal this radical change.

I don´t know what your target audience is, but be very careful with legal texts. A "passage" is not a "párrafo", "just quoted" is not equivalent to "acabamos de mencionar" ...

 

[Aray]

I thank you for your help but i do not understand why "passage" can not be translated as "párrafo". I know that this is not the literal translation but in this case, i think it is right. I translated it as "fragmento" in other parts of the test and i did not want to repeat it. Do you have another proposal?
bye

 

[Txiri]

Because a paragraph is a paragraph, and obeys certain written conventions, such as indentation ... a passage is more imprecise, it is an unspecified length of phrases, and may not even be complete sentences.

My caution is in translating legal texts. Lawyers will argue over words, that is what they do, and if they can find holes in your translation, and it suits their purposes, they will attack your translation as improperly done.

What type of test was this?

By way of alternative, I would suggest, "las primeras diez palabras del texto citado representan un cambio radical del caso como quedó presentado por el demandado en el juicio"

 

[Aray]

ok, you are right. Thank you for your advice and alternative.
Bye
Aray