Preface: Law and Legal Linguistics in a Constant State of Transition

Legal linguistics or jurilinguistics as it has been called recently, is a relatively new field of research. The first research into the field started with analysing the content of laws (the epistemic stage). Later on, lawyers started being interested in manners of communicating laws (the heuristic stage). This Special Issue of Comparative Legilinguistics contains two texts devoted to the development of legal linguistics, legal languages and legal translation and two papers on an institutional stratification of legal linguistics. It is a continuation of research published in the same journal (Special Issue no. 45 titled “The Evil Twins and Their Silent Otherness in Law and Legal Translation”) providing some insights into the problems of communication in legal settings.

Conceptual Origins of Legal Linguistics

This essay is a survey of methods applied and topics scrutinized in legal-linguistic studies. It starts with the elucidation of the epistemic interest that led to the emergence and to the subsequent expansion of the mainstream legal-linguistic knowledge that we dispose of today. Thus, the essay focuses upon the development of problem awareness in the emerging legal-linguistic studies as well as upon the results of research that might be perceived as the state of the art in the mainstream legal linguistics. Meanwhile, some methodologically innovative tilts and twists that enrich and inspire contemporary legal linguistics are considered as well. Essentially, this essay traces the conceptual landscape in which the paradigms of legal-linguistic studies came about. This conceptual landscape extends from the research into the isolated words of law and the style used by jurists to the scrutiny of legal texts and legal discourses in all their socio-linguistic complexity. Within this broad frame of reference, many achievements in legal-linguistic studies are mentioned in order to sketch the consequences of processes in which legal-linguistic paradigms take shape. The author concludes upon a vision of legal linguistics called pragmatic legal linguistics as the newest stage in the intellectual enterprise that aims to pierce the language of the law and by so doing to understand law better.

Direction-Asymmetric Equivalence in Legal Translation

The concept of equivalence, despite the criticism it has received in the past decades, remains a useful framework for the study of correspondence between legal terms. In the present article, I address the question of direction-asymmetric equivalence in legal translation, i.e. equivalence that does not obey the “one-to-one” principle, and which usually implies that the translator’s decision-making is more difficult in one direction than in the other. This asymmetry may be triggered by intrinsic semantic characteristics of legal terms (synonymy and polysemy), by differences between legal systems (system-specific terms, the procedures used for their translation and their handling in lexicographic sources, competing legal systems, tension between cultural boundedness and neutrality), or by social factors (L1 vs. L2 translation). The instances of directional asymmetry discussed are illustrated with examples from French and Czech.

A Comparative Study of the Rhetorical Functions and Features of Personal Pronouns in English and Chinese Legal News

This paper mainly discusses the distribution and rhetorical functions of personal pronouns in English and Chinese legal news reports which is divided into two narrative types, the objective and the semi-dialogic. Through the comparative analysis of some English and Chinese legal news texts in the two types, it finds that the differences in narrative type directly affect the distribution of personal pronouns. In objective narrative, the use of third person pronouns accounts for an absolute proportion, and the frequency of using first person and second person pronouns is close to zero. In semi-dialogic narrative, the use of third person pronouns is still the highest, but only slightly higher than the use of first person and second person pronouns, accounting for only a small number. After analysis, this paper holds that there are three reasons for the uneven distribution: first, the differences between the dialogic style and the narrative style; second, the legal narrative being a story narrative; third, the specific restrictions on the use of legal rhetoric.

An Analysis of the “Right of Termination”, “Right of Cancellation” and “Right of Withdrawal” in off-Premises and Distance Contracts According to EU Directives

Several are the European Directives dedicated to e-commerce, focussing on consumer rights, the distance marketing of consumer financial services and the protection of consumers indistance contracts.In contract law, the terms “termination”, “withdrawal”and “cancellation”have peculiar and distinct meaning. Nonetheless, they tend to be misused and applied interchangeably. This article will shed light on these relevant terms in thelight of EU Directives on the protection of consumer rights in off-premises and distance contracts.To do so, it will first present instances in which the meaningand use of these terms is either clear-cut or somehow blurred. By analysing word usage and meaning in context, it will explore how EU Directives, and EU drafters in general, made(un)ambiguous distinctions. Then, it will investigate whether English-speaking drafters (such as those of the pre-Brexit UK, Ireland and Malta) made a consistent use ofsuch terms. Finally, this paper will explore whether online conditions of sale writtenin English by non-English speaking sellers or traders (such as Italian and Polish) also make a consistent use of the terms.The paper findings highlight that the use andlegal purpose of these terms in European Directives have not been particularly consistent over the years. Furthermore, Member States’system-specificity has weighed on the meaning, application and scope of the terms. On the other hand, at EU level the absence of a unique legal system of reference and the challenges of harmonization may have created false equivalences.

Can Corpus Consultation Compensate for the Lack of Knowledge in Legal Translation Training?

It is generally assumed that a good knowledge of the legal field is a prerequisite to deliver legal translations. This paper will challenge this assumption by presenting a case study with third-year bachelor’s students who participated in a translation project. The students, enrolled in a course in translation practice, were trained in corpus consultation at the beginning of the academic year. Nearly at the end, they translated an extract of a supply contract without being trained in the legal field. They consulted a pre-compiled offline corpus and online bilingual dictionaries. The paper findings highlight that knowledge of the legal field would have certainly helped the students make more informed decisions and avoid some mistranslations. However, the major shortcomings were actually due to ineffective corpus or dictionary consultation. In particular, formulaic expressions and collocations were neglected. In light of the paper findings, it can be speculated that in translation training, effective corpus consultation may help users deliver high-quality legal translations. It also seemed that thorough knowledge of the legal field is not a prerequisite, at least as far as short texts are concerned.

Linguistics Difficulties in Harmonisation of European Union Law: The Example of Directives on Procedural Guaranties in Criminal Matters

Multilingual writing of European directives is faced with a few linguistic difficulties, like choosing an appropriate legal terms. All linguistic versions shall reflect the same content event though the legal system of each Member State is different and some legal concept do not have an equivalent in other legal systems. In this way, legal writing of European Directive is a very complex subject both from legal and linguistic perspective. The aim of this article is to discuss different linguistics difficulties that could appear during the harmonisation of criminal proceedings in European Union, where multilingualism is a key value and to analyse the possible solutions, when dealing with those difficulties. It seems that even if multilingualism is a big challenge to European Union, it could have a positive influence on the quality of European legislation.

Language- And Legal Culture Peculiarities in Selected Swiss Constitutional Acts Including a Translational Perspective

The subject of the analysis is linguaculture expressing linguistic and cultural differences occurring in every language of law. They relate to vocabulary and editing principles of law acts. It seems that preserving such differences in the target translation makes it possible to reveal specific legislation trends of a given country, which express political motivation. Their preservation in the translated text requires good knowledge of law and in-depth comparative analysis. The focus of the analysis in this text is on the expression of gender in the law texts and specifically, on the translation of feminatives and legal names relevant for cultural dimension of a given law system.

Arabic Legal Phraseology in Positive Law and Jurisprudence: The Historical Influence of Translation

The present study examines Arabic legal phraseology formation from the standpoint of positive law and jurisprudence. It claims that phraseological constructions in Arabic legislative and statutory texts are largely influenced by the translation process of Roman law texts. However, scholarly literature still relies to some extent on formulae used in the Islamic jurisprudence. To illustrate this, three examples of legal principles anchored in Islamic jurisprundence, known as legal maxims, are subjected to a comparative analysis and discussed along with their corresponding expressions in positive law in modern-day Arabic. Ultimately, the purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to demonstrate that the phraseology present in many Arabic positive laws is fully adapted to corresponding formulations in the Roman law, steming from a historical translation process that accompanied the codification movement in the beginning of the 20th century; secondly, to emphasize the significance of textual genre awareness in legal translation. Concretely, the introductory section provides an overview of recent studies that have addressed legal phraseologisms. It is followed by a section on the historical role of translation in the construction of certain phraseologisms. The general legal principles of (a) burden of proof, (b) presumption of innocence, and (c) the pacta sunt servanda principle are then examined in order to shed light on the influence of both the Civilist tradition and Islamic jurisprudence on the use of legal Arabic today, as well as to demonstrate how the translation of phraseologisms is dependent on the parameters of genre. The analysis leads to the conclusion that proper use of phraseologisms, whether in drafting or translation, is closely linked to knowledge of phraseology formation and the historical influence of translation.

The Abyss of Meaning or the Cauldron of Signs: Meaning and Tertium Quid. Shakespeare as a Translator?

Sum of atoms or molecules that are the signs that the author of a text organizes in speech, the text contains meaning, in latency. To activate it, reveal it must be interpreted, whether or not the purpose is to translate it. When it comes to translating, the difficulties presented by the translation of normative texts are due in large part to the notional burden, the degree of “juridical status” of the message conveyed by the text and the cultural singularity revealed by its mode of writing. While the substance of a text is of paramount importance in its interpretation, the manner in which it is written and presented – its form – is far from negligible. Each way of saying carries its own, and participates in, the meaning. The approach defined for the translation, sourcing (least-cultural) or targeting (most-cultural), guides the meaning. That is when the final interpretation of the two versions of the instrumental text by the courts fulfils the canonical function of law and language: to say the law by determining the meaning of all or part of a text. Until then, the signs generating the speech and its meaning nested in this place of uncertainty that is the tertium quid, where rest, like the ingredients that the Sisters of Destiny (Macbeth) stir in their cauldron, the signs of where meaning will come out, an uncertain and precarious truth deduced by the original interpreter of the instrumental text, the translator, transcribed into the target text. Would Shakespeare provide an answer to the existential questions posed by the translator, when the spectre (Hamlet) and the witches (Macbeth), enigmatic oracles, answer the protagonists’ ontological questions about the meaning and direction of their lives? The bard indeed launches this injunction: keep law and form and due proportion in Richard II (3.4.43)! Will the translator follow him in each of these three directions?