scholarly journals Linguistic ambiguity and vagueness in Russian legal texts

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 774-812
Author(s):  
Olga V. Blinova ◽  
◽  
Sergei A. Belov ◽  
◽  

In Russian legal texts there are many various language-based phenomena identified by lawyers as “cases of indeterminacy.” Looking at these phenomena from a linguistic point of view allows one to offer their meaningful classification. This article presents such a classification. It is based on the traditional distinction between ambiguity (we discuss only lexical, structural, and referential ambiguity) and vagueness, namely: vagueness in the narrow sense, fuzziness (we distinguish between referential fuzziness, classificatory fuzziness, and lexical fuzzy expressions including hedges, fuzzy quantifiers etc.), and lack of specification. In addition to the classification itself, the article provides some semantic tests and a variety of examples that illustrate the different types of ambiguity and vagueness, including those from Russian legal texts. We particularly argue that the cases of syntactic and referential ambiguity are periodically encountered in Russian language of law. Among them, for example, the cases of coordination ambiguity, the cases of relative clause attachment ambiguity and others. At the same time, the found examples of vagueness are expectedly much more numerous. The article aims to provide lawyers with tools for the systematic search and analysis of cases of linguistic ambiguity and vagueness in Russian texts.

2020 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 489-498
Author(s):  
M. V. Batyushkina

The research featured legal terms formed according to the semantic method, e.g. semantic generalization, expansion / narrowing of meaning, institutional specification, metonymic or metaphorical transfer, their correlation, etc. The author highlighted the interconnection of semantic term formation and polysemy. The article contains a list of factors that cause ambiguity of legal concepts: (a) the author of the legislative text and the recipient; (b) the open nature of the legal terminological system, as well as the reproduction of multivalued lexemes in the laws and their reinterpretation; (c) the development of various variants of legislative definitions, etc. The paper focuses on semantic generalization and institutional specification of legal concepts. The author describes the interconnection of denotative-predicative and logical-conceptual approaches, as well as the mechanism of generalization and abstraction of lexical meaning. The differences of metonymic and metaphorical transfers were interpreted in terms of contrasting functions, models of education, and connotation potential. The research revealed a high productivity of metonymic transfer and legal concepts based on a combination of different types of semantic terminology. The study featured the texts of Russian Federal and regional laws. The author applied various approaches, e.g. discursive, contextual, intertextual, component, denotative-predicative, logical-conceptual, interpretative, comparative, etc. The results, conclusions, and illustrative material presented in this work may be of some interest to scientists and practitioners who study legal terminology, legal texts, and issues of the Russian language as a state language.


2020 ◽  
Vol 81 (2) ◽  
pp. 21-26
Author(s):  
Z. I. Kurtseva

This article discusses an urgent educational problem, i.e. a sharp decrease in the level of students’ spoken language and, in particular, the lack of willingness and ability among school students to engage in a constructive dialogue when participating in debates. It is no accident that modern federal state educational standards pay special attention to the formation of students’ communicative competence at all levels of education. The aim of this article was to investigate the current situation in the field in order to obtain primary data showing at which educational levels the techniques of debate and discussion are used; to analyse the verbal behaviour of participants implementing various communicative strategies and tactics during debates. The following research methods were used: an analysis of literature in the field of psychology, pedagogy, communication and methodology; a questionnaire survey and interviews; an analysis of the oral presentations of students; generalization of pedagogical experience. The results of the interviews and questionnaire survey conducted among first-year university show that about 60% of the respondents experience difficulties in constructing argumentative speech. Discussions in schools are held only in high school. Secondary school teachers lack the competencies of organizing and conducting debates in class. The development of communicative skills of defending one’s point of view and conducting informed debates using communicative tactics based on the principles of dialogue and politeness should be taught during teenage years. It is at this age that communicative competencies are most actively formed. Specific examples of including debates in the curriculum of the Russian language (5th grade) for developing primary discussion skills are presented.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heba Abdel Wahed Sayed

A collection of 30 clay oil lamps from Gunther Grimm's excavations in 1973 in the Western necropolis of Alexandria has been classified by Safaa Samir Abu Al Yazid from Tanta University and found to represent 12 different types ranging in time from the Hellenistic to the late Roman periods in Egypt's ancient history. The present paper looks at this collection from the point of view of the symbolic significance of the decorative motifs used in their decoration. These motifs— figural, floral and geometric—had obvious symbolic meaning to their users and signified more than a simple belief in certain deities. They also reflected Roman Egyptian culture.


2021 ◽  
pp. 097639962097863
Author(s):  
Krishna Prasad Pandey

Nepal and Bhutan, two Shangri-las of South Asia, share similar geo-political features but substantially differ in terms of demographic size and ethno-political history. The Constitution of Nepal 2015 which was promulgated by the second Constituent Assembly formed in 2013 came up with its inclusive character as it secured reasonable space for the ethnic minorities and owned their political, economic and cultural concerns. On the contrary, Bhutan adopted a different course in terms of accommodating ethnic and minority aspirations, although the country has also chosen parliamentary democracy in a narrow sense since 2008. From constitutional point of view, Nepal’s move from a liberal to an inclusive constitution made strenuous effort to bring all sections of Nepali society on board but Bhutan’s shift from a royal decree to an exclusionary constitution consciously left a large section of minority behind by suppressing their legitimate claims for basic democratic rights. This article explores the inclusive and exclusionary characters of the current constitutions of these countries from ethnic perspective.


Energies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 14 (13) ◽  
pp. 3788
Author(s):  
Francesco Asdrubali ◽  
Marta Roncone ◽  
Gianluca Grazieschi

The construction sector is one of the most energy-intensive in the industrialized countries. In order to limit climate change emissions throughout the entire life cycle of a building, in addition to reducing energy consumption in the operational phase, attention should also be paid to the embodied energy and CO2 emissions of the building itself. The purpose of this work is to review data on embodied energy and GWP derived from EPDs of different types of windows, to identify the LCA phases, the most impacting materials and processes from an environmental point of view and to perform a critical analysis of the outcomes. The results show a strong dependence on the typology of the frame, with wooden windows having competitive performances: lower average primary energy non-renewable (1123 MJ/FU), higher average primary energy renewable (respectively 817 MJ/FU) and lower global warming potential (54 kgCO2eq/FU). More transparency and standardization in the information conveyed by the program operators is, however, desirable for a better comparability of windows performances. In particular, the inclusion of the operational impact in the EPD is sporadic, but strongly important, since it can be the most impactful phase.


Belleten ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 82 (295) ◽  
pp. 1013-1046
Author(s):  
Ekrem Buğra Eki̇nci̇

This paper considers fratricide in the Ottoman Empire from the Islamic/ Ottoman Law viewpoint. The established Turkish political tradition, which is based on the fact that the ruling power is a common patrimony of the members of the dynasty, gave rise to disastrous results in the early period of the Ottoman Empire. Since a strict succession system was not imposed during that early period of the Ottoman State, it would be the destiny of a shāhzādah (prince) which would determine his fate in becoming the next sultan. This resulted in infighting amongst the shāhzādahs. Revolting against the sultan or even planning to revolt are crimes according to Islamic/Ottoman law. The execution of those members of the dynasty who had not taken part in a revolt was legislated by the "Code of Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror," which was based on the sovereign right of the sultan accorded by Islamic Law (Orfi Hukuk). Relying on the principle of maslaha (common benefit) in Islamic law, some of the Ottoman scholars permitted fratricide as well. According to this principle, when facing two potential outcomes, the lesser of two evils is preferred. Some of the modern researchers consider this justification invalid. According to them, the execution of shāhzādahs who have not taken part in a revolt is politically correct, but contrary to Islamic law. The main contribution of this paper is to deal with the fratricide from the point of view of Islamic law by utilizing traditional legal texts and to addess to underlying Islamic legal principles behind fratricide application and what legal evidence the 'ulemā (Ottoman scholars) based their judgment on.


2021 ◽  
pp. 26-30
Author(s):  
E. Korochkina

The article reveals the practical experience of an elementary school teacher in shaping knowledge of different types of speech (types of text) among third-graders: text-description; narration text; text-reasoning. An example of organizing a Russian language lesson to familiarize with the text-reasoning is given. The role of such teaching methods as observing the characteristics of texts of different types, conducting an educational dialogue, and independent work on creating texts of different types is emphasized.


2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 342-362
Author(s):  
Xiaodong Yuan ◽  
Xiaotao Li

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore how an organization can combine different types of open innovations and what are the key factors that may influence the combination of different open innovations. Design/methodology/approach The basic methodology of this paper is the longitudinal inductive analysis within the conceptual framework of the open innovation proposed by Dahlander and Gann (2010). In this case study of Xiaomi Tech Inc., the open innovation combination is investigated through examining 25 new products created between August 2010 and December 2016 in terms of four general types: acquiring, sourcing, selling and revealing open innovation. Findings In practice, the combination of different types of open innovations can be realized. A firm may combine different open innovations at three levels: a single product level, a related product cluster level and a company level. In addition, different open innovations can be combined in diverse modes. The purpose of combining different types of open innovations is to overcome the disadvantages of each type and to exploit the advantages of all different types. Many factors may affect a firm’s option of how to combine open innovations. At different development stages, a firm may make and implement corresponding strategic direction based on its innovation capacity and internal resource. For a given strategy, the firm needs to create profits and manage intellectual property in the implementation of open innovations. These factors are interacted each other, rather than isolated. Originality/value The findings of this paper are helpful for better understanding how and why an organization can combine different types of open innovations. From a managerial point of view, an organization may combine different types of open innovations to leverage advantages and avoid disadvantages of each certain type of open innovation. An appropriate combination of different open innovations can effectively improve new product development.


Materials ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (23) ◽  
pp. 4005 ◽  
Author(s):  
Angelats Lobo ◽  
Ginestra

The classic cell culture involves the use of support in two dimensions, such as a well plate or a Petri dish, that allows the culture of different types of cells. However, this technique does not mimic the natural microenvironment where the cells are exposed to. To solve that, three-dimensional bioprinting techniques were implemented, which involves the use of biopolymers and/or synthetic materials and cells. Because of a lack of information between data sources, the objective of this review paper is, to sum up, all the available information on the topic of bioprinting and to help researchers with the problematics with 3D bioprinters, such as the 3D-Bioplotter™. The 3D-Bioplotter™ has been used in the pre-clinical field since 2000 and could allow the printing of more than one material at the same time, and therefore to increase the complexity of the 3D structure manufactured. It is also very precise with maximum flexibility and a user-friendly and stable software that allows the optimization of the bioprinting process on the technological point of view. Different applications have resulted from the research on this field, mainly focused on regenerative medicine, but the lack of information and/or the possible misunderstandings between papers makes the reproducibility of the tests difficult. Nowadays, the 3D Bioprinting is evolving into another technology called 4D Bioprinting, which promises to be the next step in the bioprinting field and might promote great applications in the future.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document