Starting from the contrastive study of a corpus of French academic transcripts and their corresponding sworn translations into Spanish, the present article aims to analyse the translation techniques that have been applied in the translation process from a functionalist perspective. By applying the concepts of translation technique and translation method, our contrastive analysis deals with textual as well as paratextual aspects of sworn translation. The results show the tension between adequacy and acceptability brought to bear by the translation process, as well as the important role played by the source culture in the determination of the global translation method.