Easy-to-read legal texts as a means of FACILITATING the cognitive accessibility of legal language

Proglas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Radomira Videva ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Legal Language ◽  
Foreign Experience ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Practical Guidelines ◽  
Cognitive Accessibility

The aim of this article is to examine the easy-to-read legal texts as a means of facilitating the cognitive accessibility of legal language. We begin our study by presenting the characteristics that make the legal language difficult to understand for its addressees non-jurists. Later, the applicability of easy-to-read version to different types of legal texts is considered. Finally, the author proposes a set of practical guidelines on the application of this method in the field of use of the legal language, which are illustrated with examples of foreign experience in thе area.

scholarly journals MACHINE TRANSLATION IN THE FIELD OF LAW: A STUDY OF THE TRANSLATION OF ITALIAN LEGAL TEXTS INTO GERMAN

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 ◽  
pp. 117-153
Author(s):  
Eva WIESMANN
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Translation System ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Machine Translation System ◽  
Translation Pedagogy ◽  
Legal Expertise

With the advent of the neural paradigm, machine translation has made another leap in quality. As a result, its use by trainee translators has increased considerably, which cannot be disregarded in translation pedagogy. However, since legal texts have features that pose major challenges to machine translation, the question arises as to what extent machine translation is now capable of translating legal texts or at least certain types of legal text into another legal language well enough so that the post-editing effort is limited, and, consequently, whether a targeted use in translation pedagogy can be considered. In order to answer this question, DeepL Translator, a machine translation system, and MateCat, a CAT system that integrates machine translation, were tested. The test, undertaken at different times and without specific translation memories, provided for the translation of several legal texts of different types utilising both systems, and was followed by systematisation of errors and evaluation of translation results. The evaluation was carried out according to the following criteria: 1) comprehensibility and meaningfulness of the target text; and 2) correspondence between source and target text in consideration of the specific translation situation. Overall, the results are considered insufficient to give post-editing of machine-translated legal texts a bigger place in translation pedagogy. As the evaluation of the correspondence between source and target text was fundamentally worse than with regard to the meaningfulness of the target text, translation pedagogy should respond by raising awareness about differences between machine translation output and human translation in this field, and by improving translation approach and strengthening legal expertise.

scholarly journals A simplification of the Consumer Rights Act. Plain legal language and legal language

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
pp. 45-71
Author(s):  
Natalia Zych
Keyword(s):  
Effective Communication ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Consumer Rights ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Average Reader ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Cost

The article examines the idea of plain legal language as a standard in creating comprehensible and effective communication in legislative acts. It features plain legal language techniques and tools used to tackle the visual and linguistic layer of legal texts. Selected techniques were implemented to experimentally modify the Polish Consumer Rights Act of 30 May 2014. The document, transformed in the spirit of plain legal language, was then submitted for assessment to lawyers as well as individuals with no legal background. The article features the results of the experiment as well as conclusions which make it possible to say whether the “simplified” act is more comprehensible to an average reader, and to assess the cost of the changes introduced in the original provisions of the law.

Lyuben Georgiev’s innovative ideas concerning Bulgarian language teaching Radomira Videva. Easy-to-read legal texts as a means of INCREASING the cognitive accessibility of legal language

Proglas ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 30 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Ivan Cholakov ◽  
Keyword(s):  
High Schools ◽  
Language Learning ◽  
Mother Tongue ◽  
Language Teaching ◽  
Junior High Schools ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
New Ideas ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Cognitive Accessibility ◽  
Important Evidence

The present paper is focused on Lyuben Georgiev’s innovative ideas concerning Bulgarian language teaching. The author’s new ideas presented in his work The Mother Tongue in Our Junior High Schools and High Schools (a Language Teaching Endeavour) (1933) have not been the subject of scientific research so far. L. Georgiev’s set of didactic ideas is important evidence for the overcoming of the Herbartian model and the orientation of language teaching towards the formation of communicative competencies. Emphasizing the creative nature of pedagogical interaction, Lyuben Georgiev offers a comprehensive system of ideas – a system that is in line with modern trends in language learning.

Investors' Motivations in Different Types of Crowdfunding

2021 ◽  
pp. 21-54
Author(s):  
Laurence Attuel-Mendes ◽  
Djamchid Assadi ◽  
Silsa Raymond
Keyword(s):  
Analytical Model ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Practical Guidelines

Although the crowdfunding (CF) sector is booming, research focusing on motivation of contributors is mainly exploratory and does not propose an analytical model. This chapter aims to propose a typology of differentiated motivations according to the type of CF. The main results, authentic compared to the existing literature, show that types of motivation are not the same depending on the type of CF considered. These findings provide significant practical guidelines for three major actors of a CF process: CF platforms must communicate according to the segmentation resulting from the respective predominant motivations. Project leaders should go beyond the simple utility and inform contributors according to the life of the project and its segmentation and the required technical tools of contribution. Contributors share personal ties and observe how the projects succeed regarding loan with interest; therefore, certain motivations, found in this research, such as pleasure of contributing, living experiences, and supporting creators should not be put forward in all the CF campaigns.

Tendenzen zu einer geschlechtsneutralen Rechtssprache in Deutschland, Österreich und der Slowakei

2021 ◽  
pp. 159-173
Author(s):  
Alena Ďuricová
Keyword(s):  
Gender Equality ◽  
Linguistic Analysis ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Translation Practice ◽  
Legal Texts

TENDENCIES TOWARDS GENDER – THE EQUITABLE LEGAL LANGUAGE IN GERMANY, AUSTRIA AND SLOVAKIA The article focuses on a special feature of legal language – its prevailing “masculine“ character. An initial theoretical outline of this peculiarity is followed by a comparative linguistic analysis of using masculine and feminine forms in German and Slovak legal terms. Our linguistic analysis is based on the comparison of legal texts collected from the author´s translation practice. The research has been conducted from the perspective of translatology and it presents examples documenting translation solutions with regard to issues of the gender equality in legal language.

scholarly journals Domestic and foreign experience of using soft fitting structures in tent equipment

2018 ◽  
Vol 251 ◽  
pp. 06008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Boris Strigin
Keyword(s):  
Mechanical Properties ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Light Transmission ◽  
Physical And Mechanical Properties ◽  
Light Reflection ◽  
Foreign Experience ◽  
Different Types

This research is review of purpose like soft enclosing structures made of different types of awning material: structural (construction of awning materials, solid (stretching and rupture) and lighting engineering (light transmission, light reflection). These researches are shown in following: graphs, tables, shorts. The prospect of development this type of construction is reviled on domestics and foreign examples of awning material. Results of studies are presented in the form of graphs and tables on the study of physical and mechanical properties of domestic tent materials and a comparative analysis of domestic and foreign experience in the use of these materials in tent structures.

scholarly journals Grupa nominalna w ustawach . System wewnątrztekstowych-odniesień

2016 ◽  
pp. 95-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Romana Łapa
Keyword(s):  
Legal Language ◽  
Specific Nature ◽  
Legal Text ◽  
Initial Location ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Two Component ◽  
Event Driven ◽  
Nominal Groups ◽  
Polish Language

This paper deals with a group of contemporary legal texts which have the form of statutes. The author describes the anaphoric relation between nominal groups (NG) constituted by an event-driven element and sentences which are linearly prior to these groups, the so-called antecedents. The analysis, founded on principles of syntax with a semantic basis, provides observations about restrictions in the formalisation of elements of the semantic base whose elements can be connected with the use of NG. The disclosure of elements of the content plan, excluding exceptions, entails a condensation which causes that categorical meanings that are the most intensely governed and communicatively relevant are fulfilled on the surface. The inability to reproduce the meaning of the “grammatical agent” causes that NG with a constitutive event-driven element are an indication of the depersonalisation attributed to legal texts. The repeatability of NG, mainly one- and two-component phrases, as well as their initial location in an utterance are factors depicting another feature of statutes: syntactic schematism. The author also demonstrates that the system of intratextual references is not the same in various variants of the Polish language. In the statute, as a genre of the legal language, its specific nature is already noticeable within one of the systematising units of the legal text, i.e. the article. The specific nature of the examined relation is conditioned by (1) the proper arrangement of structures connected with a network of references, and (2) the manner of their denotation. These features are the results of adherence to the editorial principles of legal texts.

scholarly journals Law for Elites

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-68
Author(s):  
Terezie Smejkalová ◽  
Markéta Štěpáníková
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Capital ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Legal Regulations ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Special Group ◽  
Competent Speaker ◽  
Legal Power ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
Advantageous Position

Abstract It has been claimed that to fully understand the law, one must know the language of normative texts and the relevant rules governing its use. It usually means that normative texts do not seem to be comprehensible enough to persons without formal legal training. In an on-going research project, we are focusing on the process of writing texts of legal regulations, conducting semi-structured interviews with those involved in drafting normative texts. In this paper, we focus on lawyers as a speech community of legal language speakers and we discuss why and to what extent this speech community may be considered an elite in a society. We show that competent usage of special – legal – language in regulating the whole society may help create a special group of persons wielding an important segment of cultural capital: the knowledge of legal language, and, in consequence, competent knowledge of law. Given the fact that this language is used to exercise (legal) power in a society, lawyers appear to be in the advantageous position of an elite. We argue that those who draft new legal texts reproduce writing rules and customs, constantly re-creating legal language as a language mostly incomprehensible to a non-competent speaker, and, in consequence, creating lawyers as an elite speech community.

scholarly journals A Contrastive Study of Four English Versions of Labor Contract Law of the People's Republic of China

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 1401-1408
Author(s):  
Mao Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Contract Law ◽  
People’S Republic Of China ◽  
People's Republic Of China ◽  
Legal Language ◽  
Labor Contract ◽  
Republic Of China ◽  
Contrastive Study ◽  
Legal Texts ◽  
The World ◽  
Labor Contract Law

Law is a system of rules of conduct that are created by the national legislature in accordance with the legislative procedures and are enforced by the state power. Legal language, as the manifestation of law and the carrier of the legal information, must be accurate and formal. On the ground of the special function of law, words are dedicatedly selected and used within the given field in legal texts. Some unique lexical features of legal language can be found easily to ensure the accuracy and formalness of legal texts, such as the employment of archaic words, the use of loan words and the application of formal words. The contrastive study is conducted from the lexical aspect of the four English versions of Labor Contract Law of the People’s Republic of China, with an attempt to find out the differences in formalness of the law caused by different uses of words in four versions and wish legal translators pay more attention to formality and accuracy of legal words. As for the four versions, one is taken from PKU’s legal academic sector, marked as V1 in the following comparative study. One is translated by Backer & Mckenzie(V2), one of the biggest legal agents in the world, which functions as an introduction of Chinese government’s policies concerning labor contracts to the world. One is taken from the official website the National People’s Congress of the People’s Republic of China (NPC), marked as V3. And the other is taken from Shuangcheng Attorneys at Law in association with China Axis Limited, marked as V4 in the following contrastive study.

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