CURRICULUM, LANGUAGE AND THE LAW
Dubrovnik, 18-21 Sept. 2008
Abstracts

Organizing Committee:

Ludger Kremer, University of Antwerp (Belgium)
Peter Sandrini, University of Innsbruck (Austria)
Lelija Sočanac, University of Zagreb (Croatia)
Susan Šarčević, University of Rijeka (Croatia)

María del Carmen Acuyo Verdejo
University of Granada (Spain)
mcacuyo@ugr.es

Translation in Linguistic Minorities Settings:
The Case of English Informative Texts for Immigrants

As a result of an increasing internationalisation of the world, people travel much more than ever, whether for pleasure or in search of a better life. As to the latter, we can affirm that everyone is witnessing the continuous and increasing immigration flows taking place within the European Union, due basically to the free movement of goods, people and capital established in the European Treaties.
Since the last decade, however, an increase in the number of immigrants coming from third world countries and countries other than the European ones has brought about new challenges and some changes in the profession of translator and interpreter, in the sense that they have become more an intercultural mediator rather than a mere linguistic mediator. Up to now, immigration policy has always been a domestic issue regulated by any single member State within the European Union. Nowadays, a new regulation has emerged which directly affects the legislation of all member States. Within this legislation the role assigned to the translator is paramount.
Within this context, we would like to argue in this paper the main features of English language as a lingua franca for the great majority of this specific readership in Spain. To begin with, and after a brief survey of the main approaches existing in translation literature in this particular field to date, the author will deal with an analysis of an English legal informative text for immigrant women published by the Andalusian Regional Government from phraseological and terminological points of view.

Janet E. Ainsworth
Seattle University (USA)
jan@seattleu.edu

Linguistic Ideology versus Linguistic Practice: The Cognitive and Cultural Challenge
of Code-Switching to English-Only Rules in American Workplaces

This paper considers the role of linguistic ideology in driving legal doctrine in American employment discrimination law. Specifically, I will examine the rules adopted by some American employers requiring that employees speak exclusively in English on the job. Multi-lingual employees who have been fired for violating such employment policies have attempted to argue these so-called “English only” policies violate American laws prohibiting discrimination against workers based on their ethnicity or national origin. They have, however, found a chilly reception in US courts for these claims of discrimination. In part, this is due to the ideology of language incorporated into the fabric of legal doctrine and practice, including the belief by lawyers and judges that languages are transparent media for representing reality. Judges presume therefore that, since all languages are commensurate with one another as means of interpersonal communication, it cannot be a disadvantage to a fully bi-lingual employee to be made to select one language over another while on the job. Multi-lingual employees, by that reasoning, are not disadvantaged by being required to express themselves in English alone. This paper argues that the law in this area fails to account for the linguistic research on bilingual communication. By ignoring the cognitive aspects of bi-lingual code-switching, the law falsely assumes that employees are making deliberate and unnecessary choices about their manner of expressing themselves when they code-mix and cod-switch on the job. By ignoring the social and cultural context of language use by multi-lingual speakers, these courts fail to understand the degree to which code-switching by bilinguals serves as a rich resource for encoding identity and meaning. 

Adela Bahenska
Charles University, Prague (Czech Republic)
bahenska@prf.cuni.cz

International Legal English Course: Challenges and Lessons Learned

The purpose of this paper is to share the experience of designing and teaching International Legal English (ILE) Course (using International Legal English textbook by Amy Krois-Lindner and TransLegal, CUP) to law school students and to graduate lawyers in a course offered as part of lifelong learning. 
It explores the practical aspects of course planning, such as the time required, the participants’ entry knowledge of English, selection of topics etc. The paper also touches on the general content focus of the above textbook and how the choice of topics matches the requirements of Czech law students and legal practitioners’. It discusses the issues of ‘International English’ in English language teaching and in particular the issues international legal English represents for teaching. The contribution also compares planning and teaching such a course for undergraduate students and for adults. This section will focus particularly on the difference of entry knowledge of English, the difference in knowledge of legal content, the issue of transfer (both positive and negative in case of adults) and also the psychological difference in terms of active skills. 
The paper further discusses the potential of using blended learning approach in such a course and the possibilities of localizing ILE course in terms of the things that would need to be done in order for the course to better comply with the needs of students in other than English speaking countries where all the participants share the same language and the teacher of the course is a speaker of the language spoken by the participants. In other words, what can the teacher do to make sure that the participants will be able to apply the vocabulary and the skills when talking about their legal system?

Martina Bajčić 
Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka (Croatia)
martina.bajcic@pravri.hr

The Search for Croatian Equivalents for EU Terms in Competition Law

With the establishment of the Croatian Competition Agency in 1997 in light of Croatia's preparation for accession to the European Union and the ongoing negotiation process, the relevant EU Competition legislation had to be translated into Croatian. Since the subject matter concerned is a rather fledgling field in Croatia, linguists and lawyers encounter difficulties in understanding and translating competition terminology and are plagued by discrepancies in the existing translations and legal documents. 
The paper attempts to identify relevant competition terminology (antitrust, cartel, market distortion, restraints on competition, abuse of a dominant position, concentration etc.) and to propose adequate equivalents in Croatian which are most frequently used, as shown by the example of the Decisions of the Croatian Competition Agency published in the Official Gazette. Finally, the ultimate aim is to avoid further terminological inconsistencies in the field of competition and to enable both lawyers and undertakings to easier understand the relevant laws and regulations, especially those who will have to deal with this important issue in the near future. To promote user reliability a bilingual display of both English and German terms with Croatian equivalents is provided. 

Carmen Bestué
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain)
carmen.bestue@uab.es

The Translator as the New Contract Drafter: An Analysis of Computer Contracts

The Spanish legal system belongs to the Roman and Germanic legal family and has a long tradition of its own that makes it very different from other legal systems, such as those belonging to the common law family. However, common law legal terms and entire clauses have found their way into Spanish computer contracts. Drawing on Nord (1989 y 1997) and Šarčević (1997), this paper analyses contracts between large foreign corporations and Spanish consumers, focusing on the role of translation. The analysis illustrates how legal institutions are transferred into these documents – and hence, into Spanish law – and how new drafting practises based on translation arise. Special attention is paid to the translation techniques used in culturally-bound terms, specifically in the field of damages, and some examples of Spanish, French and international equivalents will be presented. The paper concludes with some insights on the role of translators in the creation of this new hybrid genre.

Vijay K. Bhatia
City University of Hong Kong (China)
enbhatia@cityu.edu.hk

Intertextual and Interdiscursive Patterns in Legal Discourse

One of the most important aspects of legal discourse, which discourse analysts have often forgotten to take seriously, is that it is highly intertextual and interdiscursive in nature, and perhaps more so, in the context of its application to everyday real life social situations, often referred to as ‘case descriptions’ in legal terminology. Many of the currently available analytical studies, including some of my own (Bhatia, 1982, 1993), on the construction and interpretation of legal discourse have focused on individual legal texts, with some reference to context in general, and sometimes to intertextuality; however, in professional legal practice, such texts are rarely interpreted on their own; more often than not, these specialized forms of discourse, in particular, legislative, judgments, and cases, are understood and interpreted in the context of what Scollon (1998) refers to as ‘critical sites of engagement’, which are highly specific to legal practice and culture. This important relationship between the discursive and the professional aspects of legal practice thus seems to be crucial for a rigorous and comprehensive understanding and analysis of legal discourse (Bhatia, 2004). After a brief overview of legal discourse in academic and professional contexts, this paper will highlight the nature and function of intertextuality and interdiscursivity in legal genres, suggesting a framework for its analysis in the context of some of the constraints imposed by professional legal practice and culture.            

Łucja Biel
University of Gdansk (Poland)
anglb@univ.gda.pl

Legal Translation Strategies versus Established Equivalents:
On the Role of Convention in the Field of Company Law

The paper will analyse SL-oriented and TL-oriented equivalents in legal translation, using the corpus of company-law texts and Cognitive Linguistics tools. Attention will be paid to the asymmetry of EN>PL and PL>EN strategies and inconsistency in the use of strategies within a single text. These phenomena may be partly accounted for by established equivalents, convention, and intertextuality. An equivalent of a legal term should generally have a specific reference to the right legal system/knowledge base from which its meaning emerges. For it to function properly, there must be some convention (agreement) in the speech community as to what it refers to. Equivalents have their own life: they may be adopted by a speech community, used repeatedly and become entrenched as cognitive routines. Such an equivalent is called an established equivalent, in fact it may be either SL-oriented or TL-oriented. It is a matter of convention in the speech community how SL knowledge structures are accessed through a TL term. Entrenchment may be achieved thanks to available translations of major legislation; legal language being highly intertextual. Some equivalents are so entrenched that translators rarely attempt to use other equivalents and if they do, they pose a risk of being regarded as incompetent or unaware of the existing discourse. 

Dragana Bjelić – Barbara Pisker – Vesna Vulić    
Polytechnic of Požega, Požega (Croatia)
dbjelic@vup.hr – bpisker@vup.hr – vvulic@vup.hr

The Concept of Reasonable Time in Court Proceedings in Croatia

The right to be tried within a reasonable time is one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution of our country. The Republic of Croatia ratified the European Convention of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms in 1997.This Convention is one of the first documents which uses the term reasonable time.
When discussing the term reasonable time the question imposed is what is considered to be a reasonable time and how to determine it, since the concept of reasonable time differs from person to person.  
The question is to what extent has the legislator by using this term in fact contributed to the length of legal proceedings since the term reasonable time leaves enough space to every individual to interpret it in his own way.
On the other hand the imperative of modern society is to ensure unambiguous, specific and understandable language by using transparent and indisputable terms.
Our goal should be to reach the legal system where all our personal rights would be protected promptly and efficiently. Is the term reasonable time supporting this goal?

François Blais
Centre for Legal Translation and Documentation Ottawa (Canada)
fblais@uottawa.ca

La normalisation de la common law en français au Canada

Ma présentation porte sur La normalisation du vocabulaire français de la common law au Canada. Cet important travail de normalisation représente tout un défi parce qu’il convient de tenir compte du contexte particulier du Canada, bilingue et bijuridique où la compétence législative est partagée entre le gouvernement fédéral et les provinces. Ce travail qui est financé par le ministère de la Justice du Canada, est effectué par le Centre de traduction et de documentation juridiques ainsi que trois autres centres de jurilinguistique et le Bureau de la traduction. La francisation de la common law est au cœur de l’application du bilinguisme et du bijuridisme au Canada et constitue un élément important du développement de la communauté minoritaire de langue française du Canada.
J’ajouterai également un mot sur le nouveau programme de maîtrise en traduction juridique destiné aux juristes qui désirent se spécialiser en traduction, révision ou rédaction juridique. 

Antonia Blasina Miseri
Università Popolare Trieste (Italy)
antoniablasina@hotmail.com

Aspetti linguistici e legali del plurilinguismo in Croazia: il caso dell’italiano

La Croazia, un paese piccolo ma molto articolato linguisticamente, non soltanto per la presenza di diversi dialetti croati, ma anche per la coesistenza di diverse comunità autoctone alloglotte che parlano la lingua dei propri avi, diversa dalla lingua ufficiale dello Stato croato.  
Nel mio intervento intendo occuparmi della cospicua presenza della comunità italiana, considerata attualmente “minoranza”, che risiede soprattutto sulla costa del territorio istro-quarnerino, sino a Fiume e che conta attualmente circa 20.000 persone, che abitualmente utilizzano l’italiano come lingua materna. 
Porrò l’accento sugli aspetti legati alla contaminazione linguistica avvenuta nel corso dei secoli per l’inevitabile contatto tra i parlanti italiani e croati, sulle diverse forme dei dialetti istro-veneti e istro-romanzi e sulla relativa ed interessantissima produzione letteraria in lingua italiana e in dialetto. Verrà analizzato anche l’aspetto legale, l’attuale posizione della lingua italiana e della sua comunità all’interno della Croazia, con particolare riguardo alle zone considerate bilingui, alla rappresentanza al Parlamento croato, alle leggi speciali per la tutela delle minoranze  riguardanti l’istruzione, la segnaletica bilingue, le associazione culturali, la stampa.

Maja Bratanić – Vedrana Ilijevski
University of Zagreb (Croatia)
bratanic@fpz.hr – vilijevski@gmail.com

Croatian Euroterm – the Case for National and EU Terminology Harmonization in the Field of Law

Euroterm, the Croatian bilingual terminology database, has been created in accordance with the standard practice of EU member states to establish a terminological resource resulting from the process of translating the EU acquis into their respective official languages and, conversely, translating the harmonized national legislation into EU languages – nowadays, most commonly English. Croatian Euroterm is thus, a (to a certain extent random) collection of English-Croatian terminology pairs drawing on the existing terminological resources (the Croatian edition of Eurovoc and other EU terminology glossaries) as well as on individual terminological and translation solutions of a number of translators taking part in this demanding task. In other words, the Croatian Euroterm database is growing along with the process of translation and cannot always be one step ahead of translators' needs, although ideally it would be, for the sake of the best possible terminology standardization and harmonization. 
With Croatia’s accession to the EU, Euroterm will become an integral part of IATE, the EU's multilingual term base. Additional problems arise from the fact that IATE itself is not free of polysemy and multiple classifications of single terms, and from the limitations posed by Eurovoc, the indexing language used for both, internal IATE and Croatian Euroterm.
Further difficulties in legal terminology harmonization are connected with conceptual overlapping with national legal concepts.
The paper illustrates the problems stated above on the examples of EU legal terminology in the Croatian Euroterm and proposes long term procedures for its more systematic standardization.

Cecile Brich
Leeds University (UK)
C.Brich@leeds.ac.uk

Foucault and the Construction of Subjectivity in the Criminal Justice System

Foucault was one of the first to attempt to analyse the distribution of discourse in the criminal justice system. Specifically, he suggested that verbal exchanges in the context of police interrogations, interviews with psychologists, and, finally, criminal trials play a crucial part in constituting subjects as criminals. He argued that criminals are constructed as such by the discourses which they are induced to hold about the workings of their minds. In the context of these discussions, he also presented examples of defendants displaying resistance to procedural expectations. 
However, Foucault’s writings on discursive practices in judicial settings rest chiefly on a review of statutes and codes of practice, counterbalanced by only anecdotal evidence of practice on the ground. In this paper, I will present an assessment of the accuracy of Foucault’s analysis in the light of subsequent scholarship, and consider the extent to which, for all their speculative weaknesses, Foucault’s original insights may still usefully inform contemporary forensic linguistic research.

Dragica Bukovčan
Police College, Zagreb (Croatia)
dbukovca@fkz.hr

Binominal Expressions in the German and English Language of Criminal Law

Binominal expressions (germ. Wortpaare) of different types, to be found in the general language and in the languages for special purposes, are characterized by syntactic stability, sometimes lacking the identical syntactic structure in another language but preserving the original concept which is very important if two languages and legal systems are to be compared. Binominals have relatively simple syntactic structure: they consist of two words belonging to the same grammatical category (in most cases two nouns) joined by “and” / “or”. In the LSP they can be defined as conventional phraseological chunks used by a limited group of professionals. The paper focuses on some frequently occurring binominals in two different legal systems in the field of criminal law used as the basis for the analysis of their common linguistic and terminological features. 

Elisa Calvo Encinas – Juan Miguel Ortega Herráez
Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Sevilla – Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
calvoelisa@gmail.com – ortega.juanmiguel@gmail.com 

Functional Approach to Legal Translation Teaching: Combating Literality

According to Šarčević (1997) the era of modern translation began when translators were released from their commitment to reproduce the source text (ST), thus ending the predominance of retrospective translation and sheer fidelity to the source text. As a result, translation became receiver-oriented, marking the starting point of perspective translation approaches. Perspective translation is also closely related to the more general notions of "functional equivalence" and the skopos approach to translation.
As translation trainers in two different Translation Schools in Spain, similar difficulties arose when trying to transmit these translation approaches to our specialized translation students. Despite our efforts to orientate translation processes towards its target communicative context and receiver, students do not dare making non-literal translation decisions and tend to remain attached to the word-for-word rendition. Consequently, their translations are frequently trapped in microtextuality (terms and expressions) and do not reach macrotextual (document function and overall meaning) and extratextual (target receiver, communicative setting, legal effect) levels. 
In order to combat this, a series of tasks were designed to overcome that focus on ST words and concentrate instead on the intent and effect of both the ST and target text (TT) under the light of its receiver and the corresponding communicative context, thus applying non-literal translation strategies. This paper presents some of these examples and reflects on the usefulness of such practice cases.

Elena Chiocchetti – Isabella Stanizzi
Europäische Akademie Bozen (EURAC) (Italy)
echiocchetti@eurac.edu – istanizzi}@eurac.edu

Kriterien zur Normung oder Harmonisierung von mehrsprachiger Rechtsterminologie

Im Kontext mehrsprachiger Rechtskommunikation liegt der korrekte und kohärente Gebrauch der Terminologie einer einheitlichen Interpretation des Textes zu Grunde. Das gilt sowohl innerhalb eines Staates als auch auf internationaler Ebene. Vor diesem Hintergrund soll, anhand konkreter Beispiele aus zwei Projekten, Einblick in die Kriterien zur formalen Festlegung terminologischer Äquivalenzen im Recht gegeben werden. 
Im ersten Projekt werden Begriffe der italienischen Rechts- und Verwaltungssprache ins Deutsche übersetzt. Ziel ist die Schaffung einer einheitlichen Rechtssprache für den Gebrauch im zweisprachigen Land Südtirol. Die hierzu berufene Terminologiekommission hat die Aufgabe, Rechtsbegriffe zu normieren; d.h., bei vorgegebenem italienischen Wortlaut die entsprechende deutsche Fassung verbindlich festzulegen. Relevante italienische Rechtsbegriffe werden erfasst, beschrieben und ins Deutsche übertragen. Dabei werden die anderen deutschsprachigen Rechtsordnungen vergleichend analysiert. 
Das zweite Projekt setzt sich das Ziel, der terminologischen Vielfalt und Unsicherheit in den Texten der Alpenkonvention entgegenzuwirken, indem die wichtigsten Begriffe in den vier offiziellen Sprachen Deutsch, Französisch, Italienisch und Slowenisch von einer Expertengruppe verglichen und formal festgelegt werden. Aufgabe dieser „Harmonisierungsgruppe“ ist es, Übersetzungsfehler zu beseitigen, Klarheit zwischen Synonymen zu schaffen und möglichst eindeutige Definitionen zu validieren. Für jeden Begriff werden jeweils vier innerhalb der Alpenkonvention äquivalente Termini in den vier Sprachen festgelegt und eine gemeinsam abgestimmte Beschreibung des Begriffsinhalts geliefert.
Beide Projekte zeigen klare Gemeinsamkeiten hinsichtlich der angewandten Normungs- bzw. Harmonisierungskriterien, trotz unterschiedlicher Ausgangssituationen und ähnlicher – aber doch nicht gleicher – Ziele. Folgende Entscheidungsgrundlagen werden erläutert und anhand von Beispielen aufgezeigt: 
1)	Anlehnung an bereits konsolidierter Terminologie
2)	Streben nach größtmöglicher Transparenz der Termini
3)	Berücksichtigung bereits festgelegter Termini
4)	Bewusstes Ablehnen potentiell zweideutiger/ unklarer Termini
5)	Gebrauch von Anmerkungen und Erläuterungen.
Diese Kriterien garantieren die größtmögliche Klarheit und Einheitlichkeit des festgelegten Bestandes an Termini, sichern einen homogenen Qualitätsstandard und fördern so die Langlebigkeit und Akzeptanz der erzielten Ergebnisse von Seiten der Benutzer.

Irina I. Chironova 
State University Moscow (Russia)
chironova_irina@mail.ru

Comparative Analysis of American, British and Russian Legal Systems and Terminology

Which legal system does Russia belong to? The question is not so easy as it may seen. The obvious answer is that Russia belongs to the continental law, but some scholars speak about its dual character and a large gap existing between formal law and “live law”.
In my presentation I am going to dwell on the following:
1. The place occupied by the Russian legal system among other systems of law (a brief comparative study of British, American and Russian legal systems).
2. Different nature of legal systems leads to translation problems. Terminology systems are very difficult to compare because the volume of meaning of similar notions does not coincide in different languages (Russian-English examples will be given).
3. Translation equivalents are easy to find in a dictionary but often cause much confusion and one can never be sure about the quality of translation because there are many types of equivalents, including “partial cognates”: equivalents with a more narrow (broader) meaning or with overlapping meanings (examples will follow).
Translation theory and practice deal mostly with comparative studies of lexis, but for the legal translation it is very important to compare not only vocabulary in the Russian and English languages but legal systems as well.

Marta Chromá
Charles University Law School, Prague (Czech Republic)
chroma@prf.cuni.cz

Semantic and Legal Interpretation: Clash or Accord?

The purpose of my talk will be to consider the issue of interpreting (construing) the source text by a translator in the course of his or her translating legal information into the target language and target legal system, and to concentrate on the difference between “semantic” and “legal” interpretation in that process.    
The primary objective of legal translation is that the target recipient should be provided with as explicit, extensive and precise legal information in the target language as is contained in the source text, complemented with facts rendering the original information fully comprehensible in the different legal environment and culture. 
Semantic interpretation as we understand the term for the purposes of translation means that words or phrases are assigned their meaning regardless of context, or the meaning which is considered to be the most “usual” (generally given as the first option in a general dictionary). Where the legal context is considered in looking for an adequate meaning legal interpretation is in question. Legal interpretation cannot dispense with a legal knowledge of the respective topic (the better knowledge – the more precise interpretation). What in fact happens when the translator “interprets” the source text or its segment? He or she tries to identify its most probable meaning which can be transferred into the target language: how “successful” the translator of a legal text will be depends upon his or her legal knowledge that helps to pick the correct, or the closest, or most adequate target language equivalent. The translator should also consider how the target text, i.e. his or her product, can be interpreted by lawyers in the target legal system, and should avoid translational equivalents (on all levels of translation) that might lead to ambiguous interpretation. Several examples will illustrate the issue.

Tamara Ćapeta
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb (Croatia)
tamara@irmo.hr

Does the ECJ Compare Different Language Versions of EU Law?

In its judgment in case CILFIT (case 283/81, [1982] ECR 3415), the European Court of Justice used the fact that EU law exists in many equally valid linguistic versions, as an argument to persuade national courts of final instance to refer to the ECJ the issues of interpretation of Community law under preliminary ruling procedure. In this way, the ECJ tried to stop the evolving practice of highest national courts to avoid co-operation with the ECJ in finding the meaning of Community law by relying on the so called “act clair” doctrine. The argument goes that an interpretation of Community law involves a comparison of the different language versions (paragraph 18 of the judgment in case CILFIT). The ECJ was implicitly suggesting that national courts are not equipped with necessary tools to perform such linguistic comparison, whereas the ECJ is. The logical conclusion, then, is that national courts of last instance must refer the issue of interpretation to the ECJ. The aim of this research is to find out whether this argument of the ECJ has any real value. The paper will, therefore, present the findings of empirical research of ECJ judgments in preliminary ruling in interpretation with the aim to assess whether the ECJ really performs linguistic comparisons, how often, with which purpose and which languages are taken into consideration. If this does not happen in front of the ECJ, or happens only rarely, as we expect to find, then the CILFIT linguistic argument is nothing but empty Court’s rhetoric. 

Pierangela Diadori
Università per Stranieri Siena (Italy)
diadori@unistrasi.it 

Linguaggio giuridico in ambito italo-tedesco:
traduzione e insegnamento linguistico a apprendenti stranieri

Il progetto JURA (“Linguaggio giuridico in ambito italo-tedesco: traduzione e insegnamento linguistico a apprendenti stranieri”), approvato nel 2005 nell’ambito del programma per l’internazionalizzazione della ricerca italiana, ha lo scopo di creare un pool di esperti che condividano le proprie esperienze per ideare un modello di intervento per la formazione di docenti e traduttori  nell’ambito dell’insegnamento del linguaggio giuridico a studenti universitari (italiano giuridico per germanofoni, tedesco giuridico per italofoni).  
Cofinanziato dal Ministero dell’Istruzione, della Ricerca e dell’Università, il progetto coinvolge, oltre all’Università per Stranieri di Siena, specialista nella didattica dell’italiano a stranieri, anche la Facoltà di Lingue dell’Università di Genova (cattedra di tedesco e Master in traduzione giuridica italiano-tedesco), la Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (che eroga corsi di italiano giuridico per germanofoni); lo Sprachen- und Dolmetscherinstitut di Monaco di Baviera (con corsi di traduzione giuridica italiano-tedesco); l’Ecole d’Interpretation et de Traduction dell’Università di Ginevra (con corsi di traduzione giuridica plurilingue).
Il progetto (che finanzia solo la mobilità dei ricercatori) prevede alcuni incontri in presenza presso le rispettive sedi di appartenenza dei partner, finalizzati all’elaborazione di una bibliografia mirata, di una banca dati informatica e di una mappatura degli enti che offrono italiano e tedesco giuridico.
L'obiettivo del progetto è quello di fornire una descrizione aggiornata (riferita al periodo 2005-2008) delle offerte formative in alcune università campione in area germanofona e italofona, nel campo dell'insegnamento della microlingua giuridica a apprendenti stranieri (italiano e tedesco a contatto). 
Il prodotto finale sarà un modello di intervento (completo di saggi teorici e banche dati aggiornabili) destinato alla formazione dei docenti e dei traduttori che operano nell'ambito del linguaggio giuridico italiano/tedesco:
– in realtà accademiche italofone (in Italia o in Svizzera);
– in realtà accademiche germanofone (in Germania, Austria, Svizzera);
– in realtà accademiche inserite in contesti bilingui o plurilingui (Alto Adige, Svizzera).

Agnieszka Doczekalska
European University Institute, Firenze (Italy) 
agnieszka.doczekalska@eui.eu

The Translation Paradox in Drafting of EU Multilingual Law
Legal and Translation Studies’ Perspective

In order to preserve real equality between the authentic language versions of multilingual law, legal acts should be simultaneously drafted in all languages. However, European Union law – expressed in twenty-three languages – is prepared, in practice, by means of translation. At the same time, from a legal standpoint, the term ‘translation’, which implies inferiority, cannot be used in reference to the authentic language versions, which are regarded as originals. This contradiction discloses the paradox which has been explained by Correia as follows: “In practice, Community law is inconceivable without translation, whereas in strictly legal terms Community law is inconceivable with it”. 
In this paper, legal and translatological analysis of the paradox demonstrates that legal requirements and the practice of legal multilingualism are more congruent than may appear at first glance. At the outset, the meaning of equal authenticity and the authentication process are analysed from the legal standpoint. This reveals that language versions of a legal act are not equally authentic when they are drafted but when the drafting process is finished and a legal act is adopted. Accordingly, before the authentication of language versions, the term ‘translation’ and the methodology of translation studies can be applied. This allows conducting the translatological analysis of legal drafting within EU institutions, which demonstrates that all languages participate in all drafting stages and influence each other. Therefore, although some elements of translation are involved in the drafting of EU multilingual law, source and target texts are indistinguishable and the equality of all languages is preserved during this process.

Michaela Domijan-Arneri
TLT Solicitors (UK)
         M.Domijan-Arneri@tltsolicitors.com

Problems in Multilingual Litigation – A Practical Perspective

Language is a medium which plays an instrumental role in the process of conveying ideas. Whereas our perception of language in its everyday use as a mere invisible gel that facilitates communication may be somewhat underrated, the value of the impact of language distinctly manifests itself through the relationship between language and law.  The legal arena demands that lawyers and, particularly in this context, litigators, apply a tightly knit fabric of precision when using language in the performance of their work. From the litigator's perspective language is a power tool that intertwines with strategy and tactics, allows for manipulation of ideas and has remarkable potential to affect the end result. 
In international litigation there is often more than one language at play since such proceedings often involve parties from different states and jurisdictions and the use of information and documents that are originally prepared in different languages.  Consequently, litigators are faced with the ultimate challenge of multilingual proceedings - how to achieve and maintain the clarity and precision of language against the backdrop of various competing languages?
The answer to this depends on a number of factors. As an English solicitor practicing in the ambit of international commercial and maritime litigation, I have encountered particular difficulties in respect of the following factors: 
(1)  collection and reviewing of documents and information in disclosure or discovery      
      stage of proceedings;
(2)  increasing use of computer-generated translations; 
(3)  using foreign law as evidence; and
(4)  use of translators in a bilingual hearing.
Whilst the aim of this presentation is to highlight common recurring problems in multilingual litigation in reference to case examples from my practical experience, the above list is by no means exhaustive. 

Janka Doranić
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Zagreb (Croatia)
janka.doranic@mvpei.hr

Problems of Translation into English in the Field of Company Law:
Documents for Company Formation in Croatia

Mobility is one of the key words of modern global society and the increased need for communication on international level is one of its consequences. The four initial fields of the acquis communautaire deal with mobility and communication – Freedom of movement of capital, goods, persons and services. As language is the means of communication within a community and law the means of regulating relations within, the three are very closely inter-related. Translation always implicates problems, but translating legal texts is additionally complicated as legal terms are system-bound and legal systems of various countries are incongruent. The English language is bound to the common law system which significantly differs from the Croatian legal system, thus creating difficulties in the translation of Croatian legal texts into English. In order to incorporate a company in Croatia, the Croatian Companies Act prescribes the following documents to be submitted to the Commercial Court for registration regardless of the fact if the formation is being performed by a Croatian or an alien citizen: a Declaration on incorporation or Articles of association, a List of company founders, a List of directors/persons authorised for representation, a Declaration of authorised person accepting the appointment, a company member’s typical signature and some others. When an alien citizen is the founder, all the listed documents are to be signed in a notary public’s office in the presence of an official interpreter, in order for the legal transaction to be valid. All of them may be translated into English in various ways, but when searching for a translation equivalent, one has to decide between the varieties of English legal terminology, explore the function of a potential translation equivalent and use either a functional or alternative equivalent use it consistently. The objective is to achieve accurate transmission of legal information.

Jan Engberg – Isolde Burr 
University of Aarhus (Denmark) – University of Cologne (Germany)
je@asb.dk – burr@uni-koeln.de

Designing Curricula on Legal Language for Translators and Other Professionals

Especially in the last 30 years or so, the term legal linguistics (or Rechtslinguistik or Jurilingistique) has become ever more popular as denominator of a rising field of interdisciplinary work, including especially scholars from language as well as from law, but also from neighbouring fields like philosophy and sociology. And in the field of EU law the jurilinguistes have a well-defined role to play in the course of the legislation process. However, the concept is still too young for it to have a well-defined and internationally accepted referential field, although agreement exists about the core characteristics: The discipline engages in investigations of law texts (mainly written) as linguistic products of communication. In our presentation, we will start out by giving a brief survey of some of the most central strands of recent development within the discipline, mainly in the field of generic integrity and in the field of relations between linguistic elements and (interpretation of) meaning in law. 
On this basis, we want to propose some general ideas concerning what types of courses and what types of student would be relevant to subsume under the name of legal linguistics, what skills should be acquired in such courses, what professions should be targeted, etc. We will do this by presenting the curricula of two different courses, in which we are both involved, i.e. the “Studiengang Europäische Rechtslinguistik” at the University of Cologne and the course in specialised (among other things legal) translation at the University of Aarhus. The Cologne programme is a novel BA/MA-programme combining studies in law with studies in linguistics. It is oriented towards European law and therefore is based on a wide international network of cooperating partners. The Aarhus programme, on the other hand, is a more traditional MA translation programme emphasising research skills and the inclusion of recent knowledge about legal linguistics and especially legal semantics. Through the comparison of the two curricula we want to show possible points of future development in both types of programme.

Laura Ervo – John Pointing – Leslie Blake
University of Turku (Finland) – Kingston University (UK) – University of Surrey (UK)
lauervo@utu.fi – j.pointing@kingston.ac.uk 

Fair Trial as Discourse: The New Scandinavian Communicative Court Culture
Contrasted with the Decline of 'Orality' in the English Legal System

A fair trial can be seen as a discourse.   Its core is the adversarial right, which covers more than the formal opportunity to be heard.   In its modern form, its importance lies in the chance which it gives to litigants for active involvement.   This kind of 'adversarialism' can be illustrated by the 'Theory of Discourse Ethics'.  Orality and immediacy are the key principles when a trial is looked at as a communicative activity.
In Scandinavia, the recently reformed civil procedures have brought fundamental changes to judicial culture.   There is now more interaction and dialogue.   Also the role of 'conflict resolution' has been increasing and more emphasis has been placed on friendly settlements, procedural justice, and a 'client-centred' approach.
By contrast, in England and Wales (the jurisdiction which most famously developed the adversarial system and gave rise to the concept of the litigants' ‘day in court’, instead of a Kafka-like ‘process’) there has been a trend away from 'orality' towards written legal submissions, ‘paper hearings’, and ever-lengthier written judgements handed down by the court or tribunal, long after the close of the hearing, in the place of the old system of extempory judgements, given by word of mouth, immediately after closing submissions have been heard.
This paper will analyse these contrasting trends and discuss the implications for any system of justice striving towards a fair hearing.

Celina Frade
Universidade Federal Rural do Rio de Janeiro (Brazil)
cfrade@ufrrj.br

Generic Variation Across International Arbitration Practices

Notwithstanding its long-time tradition, only after the enactment of Arbitration Law 9.307/96 was Brazil definitely inserted into the real world of international arbitration. Updated records show that there is a growing number of controversies involving Brazilian parties/cases in major international arbitration chambers such as ICC and AAA. Consequently, some standard common-law mechanisms and tools accepted in international arbitration proceedings which are not features of civil law litigation have gradually been imported by Brazilian arbitration practitioners. Such mechanisms include discovery, expert witnesses, adverse inference, bottom-up approach, factual contexts, common law orientation for evidence and cross-examination and may be completely or partly unknown to civil lawyers in general.  This paper aims at (a) investigating the formation of questions in English and, in particular, common-law style cross-examination as opposed to civil-law questioning tradition and (b) providing Brazilian arbitration practitioners with a guide to questioning under a linguistic-pragmatic approach as part of his/her preparation of conducting witness examination.  The claim is that even our most experienced domestic arbitration practitioners may face potential difficulties during the course of international arbitration proceedings wherein common-law tools, such as cross-examination for adverse witnesses, are used. 

Milica Gačić
University of Zagreb (Croatia)
milica.gacic@ufzg.hr

Linguistic Analysis of EUR-Lex > Process and Players
A Tool for Teaching the Basics of European Legal English, French and German
and Their Translations

Using the corpus-based approach, departing from the definitions of morphosyntax and lexicogrammar, and by analysing meanings of language units from the point of view of their semantics, structure (grammar) and sentence functions, the author would like, through a contrastive approach, point out characteristic features and differences among languages in the legal field. The results of the analysis could not only shed light on the linguistic characteristics but be further developed into teaching materials for students who need the knowledge of the basics of the European legal system or as a starting material for more advanced studies.
It is necessary that the analysis goes beyond the level of simple lexical studies in order to show the text-related characteristics, which could be more relevant for the translation domain.

Claudia General
University of Applied Sciences, Winterthur
claudia.general@zhaw.ch

Qualification and Quality Control of Court Interpreters in Switzerland
The Canton Zurich as an Example

Two theses on court interpreting in Switzerland from the University of Applied Sciences Zurich-Winterthur concluded that until recently a person could be listed on the register of court interpreters without providing evidence of any interpreter training. The only prerequisite was "no criminal record." It was assumed that a person speaking or understanding two languages was automatically able to work as an interpreter. The register was rather like a list of footballers used in penalty shootouts. Anyone who performed well remained on the list; otherwise his or her name was deleted.
The canton of Zurich court authorities realized, however, that an unqualified person not only cost time and money during a court trial, but could actually detract from pursuit of the ultimate aim, i.e. assisting someone unable to speak one of the Swiss official languages. Furthermore the right to a fair trial according to article 6 of the European Convention on Human Rights will not be guaranteed if the court interpreter is not qualified. 
The Department of Continuous Education and the Department of Conference Interpreting at the University of Applied Sciences Zurich-Winterthur worked with the courts in the canton of Zurich to develop three projects for the qualification of court interpreters:  a two-day introductory course consisting of eight hours of law and eight hours of interpreting, an eight-day seminar with basic interpreting techniques being taught for seven hours a day and a two-semester course to instruct the interpreter in the workings of the judicial system.
In the meantime the participation in the two-day course and the following exams have become obligatory for all interpreters wishing to be listed on the register.

Christopher Goddard
Riga Graduate School of Law (Latvia)
Christopher.Goddard@rgsl.edu.lv 

A Professional Master’s Programme in Legal Linguistics:
A Possible Syndicated Model for Translators and Lawyers?

At the initiative of the Latvian government, the author coordinated a multidiscipinary team in conceptualizing and developing a model for a one-year (three-semester) professional training programme for legal linguists (MA in legal linguistics) in support of EU organizations, state administrative institutions, and others in the private sector.
Programme aims are: 
1. to provide linguistic competence to lawyers daily engaged in drafting, revising, or editing legal acts, and to control the legal and linguistic correctness of legal texts translated from other languages;
2. to enhance the professional competence of legal translators by adding theoretical knowledge of the legal landscape. 
The programme is officially approved in Latvia. The first year of the programme runs from September 2007 to October 2008.
This paper identifies and discusses the theoretical issues involved, and how these are being addressed in practice, especially bearing in mind that this programme appears to be the first such programme of its kind.

Iris Goldner Lang
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb (Croatia)
igoldner@pravo.hr

Languages as a Barrier to Free Movement of Persons in the European Union?

The European Union internal market is characterised by the abolition, between its Member States, of any obstacle to the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital. On the other hand, the proclaimed protection of cultural and linguistic diversity of the EU Member States can sometimes limit or impede market freedoms in the EU. This paper will look at the friction between freedom of movement of people, on the one hand, and linguistic protection, on the other hand. According to EC law, the requirement of linguistic knowledge can be justified when “necessary for practising the profession in the host Member State” or when “required by reason of the nature of the post to be filled”. The paper will trace the rule of “necessity” in the light of case-law of the European Court of Justice and Croatian accession negotiations. It will try to detect how to balance free movement of persons and acceptable linguistic limitations to such freedom. Relevant case-law of the European Court of Justice, starting with Groener and Haim, and further developed by Hocsman, Angonese, Spain v. Eurojust, Commission v. Luxembourg and United Pan-Europe Communications Belgium and Others will be taken into consideration in the discussion.

Maurizio Gotti 
Università di Bergamo (Italy) 
m.gotti@unibg.it

Legal Drafting in an International Context: Linguistic and Cultural Issues

Nowadays legal texts are often subject to the pressures of globalisation operating upon contemporary legal systems. Indeed, in this context law is fast assuming an international perspective rather than remaining a purely domestic concern. However, in spite of the growing efforts of the international community to guarantee greater and greater harmonisation in legislation and procedures, local constraints and specific cultural aspects still represent a relevant conditioning factor. 
This is clearly visible in the normative texts in use in the various contexts which show discrepancies deriving not only from differing legal and cultural systems, but also from the use of different linguistic codes. These issues are especially relevant in international trade, which often involves documents written in English but incorporating norms issued by a non-English-speaking country. 
Moreover, the need for all-inclusiveness implicit in the globalising process may at times determine some vagueness and indeterminacy in the wording of legal texts, mainly due to the adoption of general terms conveying wide semantic values, with the result that their meaning in the context of those provisions is not as clear as expected.
This paper aims to investigate the means whereby normative discourse (statutes and regulations) is employed in different cultural, linguistic and legal environments; to illustrate this phenomenon, it targets legislation on international arbitration from the ‘Model Law on International Commercial Arbitration’ adopted by the United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in 1985 and later integrated into the laws of several countries with different constitutional, socio-cultural and economic conditions. 

Ada Gruntar Jermol
University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
ada.gruntar@guest.arnes.si

Recht übersetzen – leicht gemacht?
Oder: Wie schnell kann man sich beim Übersetzen von Rechtstexten verlaufen?

Das Übersetzen von Rechtstexten ist – vor allem für die Nicht-Fachleute – ein komplexer Prozess. Die erste Barriere stellt schon das Fach selbst dar: Das Spezifische beim Übersetzen juristischer Texte liegt nämlich darin begründet, dass man es dabei nicht nur mit zwei verschiedenen Rechtssprachen zu tun hat, sondern auch mit zwei Rechtsordnungen und ihren jeweils verschiedenen Gesetzmäßigkeiten und Systemen von Rechtswirkungen, die die Rechtssprache – insbesondere ihren begrifflichen Teil – entscheidend prägen. Die Suche nach äquivalenten Termini in der Zielsprache ist daher nicht selten eine anspruchsvolle Aufgabe. Nicht nur die Auswahl entsprechender Termini stellt eine große Herausforderung dar, sondern auch die Auswahl entsprechender Verben, Adjektive und Präpositionen, die sich mit Termini verbinden (wie einen Vertrag schließen/aufheben, unter Verwendung einer Waffe, das Gesetz verabschieden ...) Solche festen Wortverbindungen (Kollokationen) können selbst erfahrenen Übersetzern oft erhebliche Schwierigkeiten bereiten, weil sie eine Übersetzungseinheit bilden und daher nicht einzelsprachlich übersetzt werden können. Zu anspruchsvolleren Übersetzungskategorien gehören gewiss auch Synonyme und Homonyme, die im Recht oft vorkommen. Beim Rechtsübersetzen soll auch die Tatsache mitberücksichtigt werden, dass verschiedene juristische Textsorten (wie etwa Gesetzestext, Vertrag, Anklageschrift ...) diverse Übersetzungsstrategien verlangen und dass es zwischen der Ausgangs- und der Zielrechtssprache zahlreiche morphologische und syntaktische Unterschiede gibt.

Azirah Hashim – Richard Powell 
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (Malaya) – Nihon University, Tokyo (Japan)
azirahh@um.edu.my – powell@eco.nihon-u.ac.jp

Adversarial and Arbitrative Discourses in Malaysian Conflict Resolution

While the majority of legal conflicts in Malaysia are resolved through a common law system that has evolved out of the English law introduced during the period of colonial administration, the adversarial culture of this system is periodically criticised as inappropriate for an Asian society that has traditionally valued conciliation and consensus. An alternative to the common law courts that seems to be increasingly attractive to civil disputants is arbitration, with the 2005 revision of the Arbitration Act clarifying the role and jurisdiction of arbitrative bodies such as the Kuala Lumpur Regional Arbitration Centre. However, current evidence suggests that there is considerable institutional and discursive overlap between the two systems: the common law High Court retains a supervisory role in the processes of arbitration; many arbitrators and other professional participants have experience as common law judges and lawyers; and some of the patterns of discourse typical of adversarial courtrooms are carried over, including restrictive, asymmetrical questioning of witnesses. Drawing from observation of cases in both common law and arbitration cases in Malaysia, this presentation will (1) consider criticisms levelled at adversarial legal culture; (2) examine motivations of potential litigants in choosing arbitrative methods of conflict resolution; and (3) compare discourse patterns and constraints on language- and code-choice across the two systems. 

Gernot Hebenstreit
University of Graz (Austria)
gernot.hebenstreit@uni-graz.at

Asylrechtsterminologie für den Dolmetscheinsatz bei Asylverfahren in Österreich

Für viele Sprachen, für die am österreichischen Bundesasylamt bei asylrechtlichen Einvernahmen häufig DolmetscherInnen zum Einsatz kommen, gibt es keine fundierte und umfassende Sammlung der asylrelevanten Terminologie. Aufgrund fehlender oder falsch verwendeter Terminologie können bei Asyleinvernahmen gravierende Probleme entstehen.
Auf die Wichtigkeit einer korrekten Terminologie wurde u. a. im Handbuch Dolmetschen im Asylverfahren hingewiesen (Bundesministerium für Inneres, Institut für Translationswissenschaft der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz, Österreichischer Verband der allgemein beeideten und gerichtlich zertifizierten Dolmetscher und UN-Flüchtlingshochkommissariat UNHCR in Österreich, 2006). Dieses Handbuch entstand im Rahmen eines gemeinsamen Projektes zwischen dem Bundesasylamt, dem Grazer Institut für Theoretische und Angewandte Translationswissenschaft, dem Unabhängigen Bundesasylsenat, dem UNHCR und dem Österreichischen Verband der Gerichtsdolmetscher. Ziel des Handbuchs war es die Rolle, Rechte und Pflichten von DolmetscherInnen im Asylverfahren zu thematisieren.
Da im Asylwesen für manche Sprachen auch DolmetscherInnen ohne einschlägige Ausbildung zum Einsatz kommen, ist anzunehmen, dass diese zur Vorbereitung von Dolmetscheinsätzen keine umfassende und kohärente Terminologiearbeit betreiben. Für das Asylwesen gibt es bislang weder spezifische zwei- oder mehrsprachige Fachwörterbücher, noch umfassende und terminologiewissenschaftlich fundierte Terminologiesammlungen. Falls DolmetscherInnen sich die relevante Terminologie erarbeiten, sind sie auf eigenständige Recherchen und Terminologiearbeit in Eigeninitiative angewiesen. Aufgrund des fehlenden Materials zur Vorbereitung und der Komplexität der Materie kann auch angenommen werden, dass die verwendete Terminologie sehr uneinheitlich – und u. U. sogar missverständlich bzw. falsch – ist. Zum Teil wird diese Annahme auch durch wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen bestätigt.
Gegenstand dieser Präsentation ist ein vom EFF finanziertes Projekt zur Einrichtung einer mehrsprachigen Datenbank zum österreichischen Asylrecht, die geeignet ist, die beschriebene Lücke zu schließen und dadurch einen Beitrag zur Verbesserung der Qualität von Dolmetschleistungen in diesem Bereich und somit  auch der Gesamtqualität des Asylverfahrens insgesamt zu leisten. Zur Sprache kommen sollen dabei primär methodische Probleme, die sich aus Zielsetzung und Adressatenbezug des Projekts ergeben.

Erik Hertog
Lessius Hogeschool Antwerpen (Belgium)
erik.hertog@lessius.eu

The Provision of Legal Interpreting and Translation in the EU

Facing new and multiple challenges such as immigration, cross border crime, terrorism, the movement of people and goods, etc., the European Union has come to realize the increased importance of the need for judicial cooperation and mutual recognition between Member States in order to guarantee security and justice in the EU.
However, at the same time there is a deep concern that, with regard to these challenges, the citizens’ freedom and fundamental rights must be safeguarded.
AGIS project JLS/2006/AGIS/052 must be seen as part of a concerted effort to establish guarantees and mechanisms for compliance with procedural safeguards in criminal proceedings in all Member States of the European Union.
Since the Tampere summit (1998), the EU has taken several initiatives in this area culminating eventually in a Green Paper (2003) and a proposal for a Framework Decision on Specific Procedural Rights in Criminal Proceedings (2004). Unfortunately enough, this proposal did not succeed in getting the unanimous support of all Member States and was abandoned in 2007.
This AGIS project focuses particularly on one such fundamental procedural safeguard, the right to access to justice across languages and culture or in other words, the right to a free interpreter and the translation of all relevant documents in criminal proceedings.
The need to provide all citizens of the EU with the right to a fair trial, including the provision of quality legal interpreting or translation, is both a major ambition and challenge for the EU, given the disparity and the patchy and uneven provision of legal interpreting and translation throughout the EU. 
 In order to remedy these discrepancies and to arrive at minimum guaranteed standards in all Member States, one needs, first of all, more detailed and objective information on the existing provisions, a status quaestionis on legal interpreting and translation in the EU. This will in turn allow for considered reflection and action both on EU and on Member State level. 
We have chosen to carry out this task by means of a EU-wide questionnaire, so that both best practices but also differences in policy and the different implementation of this procedural right may be ascertained.
The core sections of the report provide an analysis of the responses from each Member State (Luxemburg excepted) on the basis of indicators that are relevant to assess the provision of legal interpreting and translation. These indicators allow us to draw up a composite country profile of each Member State for interpreting as well as translation. A more detailed, thorough analysis of one Member State has been included by way of example to show how the information has been gleaned and to stimulate colleagues to delve for themselves into the materials and exhaust the full potential of the responses.
These country profiles are then weighed and ranked, first of all, on a number of essential performance indicators (e.g. procedural safeguards, regulation of the interpreting and translation professions and quality assurance…) and subsequently on five Green Paper indicators (accreditation, register, code, training, vulnerable groups).  This has allowed us to draw up overall apex indicators ranking all Member States on a EU scale and shows in composite maps how the Member States are performing with regard to this particular procedural safeguard. 
The core conclusion of this survey on the provision of legal interpreting and translation in criminal proceedings in the EU is twofold. Firstly, the survey shows that sufficient legal interpreting and translation skills and structures are not yet in place to meet the goals that all individuals, irrespective of language and culture, have their procedural right respected in each Member State. Secondly, however, it also shows a process of development to do so is in progress across the EU, albeit still variable in coherence, quality and quantity.

Gertrud Hofer
Zürcher Hochschule Winterthur (Switzerland)
hofe@zhaw.ch

Legal Interpreting in Switzerland: Improving the Quality of Interpreting Services

In Switzerland, as in many other countries, migration fluxes have changed the demographic and linguistic profile of the country, making it increasingly multicultural. About 7 % of the population in Switzerland have as their main language Albanian, Bosnian/Croatian/Serbian or Portuguese, and there are also many speakers of Spanish, English and Turkish. This change has had an impact on institutions such as hospitals, schools and courtrooms, where interpreting services are needed in increasing numbers since the middle of the 20th century. For legal interpreters in most of these “new” languages, there is no formal training available in Switzerland, and institutes of translation and interpreting face the challenging task of reacting to this new multilingualism of modern societies and of contributing solutions.
In the canton of Zurich, the largest canton in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, an advisory panel appointed by the (cantonal) department of justice proposed that steps should be taken to increase expertise and professionalism in the profession. This proposal led to the implementation, in 2003, of a basic training program for legal interpreters in cooperation with the Institute of Translation and Interpreting of the Zurich University of Applied Sciences Winterthur.
This paper describes the training programs offered by the Institute of Translation and Interpreting and presents the results of a research project that provided the background for an analysis of the legal interpreter’s tasks, as perceived by the interpreters themselves and by the service providers, referred to in this paper as the end users. The findings of the study reveal the disparity of views regarding the role and the task of the legal interpreters.

Marijana Javornik Čubrić
University of Zagreb (Croatia)
mjavornik@yahoo.com

Plain English for Lawyers

The purpose of the plain English movement is to make the legal documents more comprehensible to the average person. Criticism of legal writing in England dates back to the 14th century, but the modern plain English movement began in the 1970s. Today, many books are available for use in law school writing courses, as well as for teaching English for Law that focuses on plain English principles. The students of law should be taught that good legal writing is actually writing in plain English. This paper analyses the history of the plain English movement, the recent changes in the legal language in England introduced in 1999 with the implementation of the new rules of civil procedure that abolished some outdated legal terms for modern equivalents, as well as the main ways to teach the students of law and law professionals how to make legal writing clearer.

Åse Johnsen
University of Bergen (Norway)
Ase.johnsen@if.uib.no

Analyzing the Interpreter’s Visibility:
A Case Study from Bergen Town Court, Norway

In my presentation I will present some results from an ongoing research on court interpretation. During fall 2007/spring 2008 I will be collecting data from trials held at the Bergen Town Court. The investigation will deal with various aspects of court interpretation and the data will represent different languages. In this presentation I will focus on the way the data were collected and how the interpreters make them self visible in their translated discourse. 

Mira Kadrić
Universität Wien (Austria)
mira.kadric@chello.at

Gut in allen möglichen Welten? Translation und Macht im Gerichtssaal

Macht ist in den translatorischen Berufen eine nicht zu unterschätzende Dimension. Da insbesondere die Dolmetschtätigkeit einmalig, mündlich und flüchtig ist (Aufzeichnungen sind die Ausnahme), steht sie kaum unter der Kontrolle der Bedarfstragenden, Auftraggebenden oder Öffentlichkeit. Dabei spielt der Umstand eine Rolle, dass es keine wirklichen Vorgesetzten und selten Kolleginnen und Kollegen gibt, die vollen Einblick in die Translationstätigkeit haben und mit denen die Translatorin oder der Translator eng zusammenarbeiten muss oder einen tieferen Erfahrungsaustausch pflegt. Translatorinnen und Translatoren erzeugen nicht zuletzt Misstrauen, weil sie an einer Schaltstelle sitzen und eine Macht ausüben können, die in der Regel keiner unmittelbaren Kontrolle ausgesetzt ist. 
Aus der Perspektive der dolmetschenden Person wiederum ist insbesondere in dialogischen Situationen (im Besonderen in der institutionellen Kommunikation und hierbei in Gerichtsverhandlungen) die soziale Macht als psychologische Universalie stark spürbar. Alle Verfahrensbeteiligten versuchen in Anwendung ihrer Verhandlungsstrategien, alle an der Kommunikation Beteiligten, die Dolmetscherin oder den Dolmetscher insbesondere, in ihrem Sinne zu beeinflussen. Dabei ist es nicht einfach zu bestimmen (bzw. zu beweisen), wo eine sozial gebilligte Einflussnahme, auf die sich eine Gesellschaftsgruppe geeinigt hat, vorliegt, und wo eine von der sozialen Regel abweichende Unterdrucksetzung stattfindet. Der Vortrag beschäftigt sich mit Konzepten zur sozialen Macht und translatorischen Strategien, die helfen, Beeinflussung zu erkennen und damit kreativ umzugehen. 

Anne Lise Kjær 
University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
Anne.Lise.Kjer@jur.ku.dk,

Legal Translation in the EU at the Crossroads of National and Supranational Law:
Dynamics and Complexities

In my opinion, legal translation within the framework of the European Union is qualitatively different from translation in other contexts due to the special character and organisation of the legal system. Two points are generally overlooked in existing research:
1. The interplay with the domestic legal systems of the Member States. By treating multilingual language production in the EU as an instance of translation in international organisations or as a phenomenon similar to translation within national legal systems, the analysis fail to account for the fact that EU law comprises features of both international law and domestic law, a fact which makes translation in the EU particularly complicated.
2. EU law is not an established legal system. It is a system of incoherent legal rules and principles, developing into a more coherent legal system. In theories of law and language it is often pointed out that legal translation and legal language cannot be described properly without taking the mechanisms and functions of law into consideration. However, in the case of translation in the EU, the impact of the integration process on the way that legal translation works is generally not described.
On this background, it is questionable whether translation in the EU can be accounted for adequately by well known theories of legal translation. In this paper, I shall argue for taking a broader perspective, which includes not only comparative law and legal translation, but also theories of legal integration. 

Alenka Kocbek
University of Primorska, Koper (Slovenia)
alenka.kocbek@guest.arnes.si

Conforming the Principle of Cultural Embeddedness to the Sepcifics of Legal Translation

In many aspects legal translation seems to be an adequate domain for applying the functionalist approaches to translation, especially the skopos theory. Yet, an indiscriminate application of Vermeer’s principle of cultural embeddedness may prove to be misleading, as it may cause disturbances in the legal communication occurring through the translation act. 
Namely, the translatability of legal terms directly depends on the relatedness of the legal systems and not of the languages involved in the translation. Moreover, in legal translation we may not always be able to embed the target text in the target culture intended as the target legal system. In legal transactions, such as e.g. contracts involving parties from different countries, only one legal system is defined as the communication framework (i.e. the governing law). The clause on the governing law is thus a fundamental element of such contracts, as it also defines the legal foundation of the translation. In such cases, the principle of cultural embeddedness may only be applied with respect to the linguistic aspects of the text, whereas on a wider scale, i.e. as far as the cultural (i.e. legal) foundation of the text is concerned, the source and the target text will have the same reference. A specific problem is represented by the use of a lingua franca, as in this case there is no direct correlation between the language(s) and the underlying legal system(s).  In addition, the lingua franca may refer to a legal system different from both the source and the target one, which is often the case with English. English as a lingua franca potentially implies the risk of introducing in the communication legal concepts which are alien to the cultures of communicating parties, as the terms used may be tainted by the meaning attributed to them within the Anglo-American legal system.

Ljubica Kordić
University of Osijek (Croatia)
kljubica@pravos.hr

The Importance of Teaching German for Legal Purposes (GLP) at Croatian Law Faculties

The paper deals with the role of foreign languages in the curricula of Croatian law faculties today with special reference to German and English as languages for legal purposes. The author tries to prove the importance of German for the life-long education of lawyers in Croatia by researching into bibliography used by Croatian legal theorists and practitioners in the papers they have published in legal journals of the Law Faculty in Osijek and the Law Faculty in Rijeka in the period between 1991 and 2003.  On the grounds of this research, as well as the analysis of some historic and legal facts concerning German and Austrian law systems and their influence on Croatian law, a specific task of this paper is to prove the importance of teaching German for legal purposes at Croatian law faculties, not only for historical reasons, but also for practical and professional reasons.

Nikolina Korečić
HalPet Business Communication, Zagreb (Croatia)
nikolina.korecic@zg.t-com.hr

Teaching Business Communication Skills to Croatian Lawyers

Every day millions of people belonging to different nations and cultures meet and conduct various business operations. English, serving as lingua franca, very often facilitates such intercultural encounters. Intercultural business communication is furthermore affected by the legal systems of the cultures involved. The Anglo-American legal system is based essentially on common law, whereas the legal systems of much of continental Europe are based on civil law. English, being the world’s most commonly used lingua franca, is getting used to its new function by adopting terms and concepts from both systems, especially within the framework of the European Union. 
In this paper an overview of advanced business communication skills needed by lawyers in order to be able to participate in such cross-cultural encounters is given. These include business speaking skills, such as socializing, presenting, negotiating, and meetings, as well as business writing skills, such as business correspondence, contracts, and reports. All of this is supported by the practical experience of teaching business communication skills to Croatian lawyers as a part of the International Legal English Course. In conclusion, skills which seem to be of the greatest importance for Croatian lawyers are discussed and placed within the context of Croatia’s accession to the EU

Ludger Kremer – Lelija Sočanac
University of Antwerp (Belgium) – University of Zagreb (Croatia)
ludger.kremer@mac.com – lelijasocanac@yahoo.com

Tempus Project: Foreign Languages in the Field of Law

The paper will present the main objective, outcomes and activities of the Tempus project Foreign languages in the Field of Law within whose framework the Conference “Curriculum, Language and the Law” has been organized. The three-year international project, funded by the European Commission, was initiated on 1 September 2006. The project has established a consortium network, with the University of Zagreb (Croatia) as the Coordinator and the University of Antwerp (Belgium) as the Grantholder, which includes four Croatian universities, two ministries and six EU universities. The main project objective has been to set up an interdisciplinary Centre for Language and Law, which is in charge of foreign language curriculum development and implementation of language courses for law students and legal practitioners at Croatian universities, and curriculum development and implementation of workshops for foreign language lecturers and legal translators within the framework of lifelong learning. The Centre also promotes research on various aspects of the interface between language and law, hosts Croatian and international projects on relevant research areas and promotes international cooperation. Organizing conferences on language and law and publishing research results are also important tasks of the Centre.

 Mairtin Mac Aodha 
N.U.I. Maynooth (Ireland)
mmacaodha@yahoo.ca

The Bilingual Legal Dictionary and the Translator

Legal translation is an area in which dictionaries are notoriously misleading. Conventional law dictionaries are no more than mere wordlists and the translator is presented with a list of translation equivalents and little of the lexical data needed to produce legal texts. The purpose of this paper (part of my doctoral research) is to examine the applicability of the Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionary (ECD) model to bilingual law dictionaries to improve the quality of linguistic information these provide the translator. This lexicographic model, proposed in the late 1960’s by Alexander Zholkovsky and Igor Mel’čuk, has a number of original features, in particular its rich description of the restricted lexical combinatrics of each head word. Terminologists by concentrating on taxonomic and meronymic relationship overlook an entire set of relationships. Terms combine with other words in a particular way that translators and other text producers need to know. It is this neglect of lexical cooccurents that makes specialized dictionaries unable to meet the demands of translators desiring to produce texts that are idiomatic and true to the style of the domain in question. Common lexical errors made by legal translation students will be discussed, the way traditional law dictionaries contributed to these mistakes highlighted and sample ECD entries for these terms proposed. It is accordingly also a contribution to the field of jurilinguistics or la jurilinguistique which has as its focus the interaction between language and law.  

Stefania M. Maci
Università di Bergamo (Italy)
stefania.maci@unibg.it 

Language in Litigation and Arbitration: Litigation Procedures in Arbitral Practice

The 1994 reform of the Italian Code of Civil Procedure officially promulgated arbitration as an alternative dispute resolution and aligned Italy with both European and international legislation. Since then, (international) commercial arbitration in Italy has been increasingly seen as an efficient, economical and effective alternative to litigation for settling commercial and other disputes. The 2006 Reform of Italian Arbitration Law has evidenced the attempt to solve some main issues in Italian arbitration, mainly the possibility of challenging awards caused by some loopholes deriving from the existence of as many forms of arbitration as the types of dispute which need to be solved. Despite the fact that the new reform has partially solved such problems, in order to avoid any types of challenge, the local Chambers of Commerce managing the arbitration proceedings strongly invite the party to follow a standard arbitration procedure under the control of an institutional body and to appoint arbitrators who are legal experts. As a consequence, arbitration practices seem to be influenced by litigation features. Indeed, a contrastive analysis between Italian awards and Italian legal cases has revealed instances of arbitration colonized by litigation.
It is the purpose of this paper to present more evidence in support of the hypothesis of the ‘colonization’ of litigation procedures in arbitral practices characterizing the international commercial context. To attain this goal, the paper will investigate those legal aspects (content vs. formulaic expressions) which have caused a modification of Italian and English arbitration practices in terms of intentions, purposes, and processes. The research findings will result from a contrastive analysis of English and Italian awards, on the one hand, and English and Italian legal sentences on the other. 

Rada Malobabić
University of Rijeka (Croatia)
rmalobabic@yahoo.com

Major Syntactic Features of EU Legislative Writing

The paper analyses syntactic features of legislative writing based on a corpus of four English EU legislative documents and the Croatian translations. The corpus includes Council Framework Decision 32002F0584, Council Regulation 32005R0111, Council Framework Decision 32001F0220 and Council Decision 32003D0335. 
The primary aim of the paper is to illustrate major syntactic characteristics of EU legislative writing in English and to determine to which degree EU legislative texts follow the syntactic features of traditional legislative writing. The Croatian translations of the analysed features are also provided to investigate whether and to which extent the Croatian translations follow the syntactic features of English legislative writing. The major syntactic features analysed include sentence length, nominalizations, binominal and multinomial expressions, complex prepositional phrases, syntactic indicators of condition and hypothesis, and qualifications. 

Dominique Markey
Universiteit Antwerpen & Katholieke Universiteit Brussel (Belgium)
dominique.markey@ua.ac.be

La vulgarisation du discours juridique en francophonie

Le discours et la matière juridique étant hermétiques pour un public non initié, de nombreuses instances jugent opportun de vulgariser le droit. Le juriste en herbe se doit d’être sensibilisé à ce phénomène et devrait être capable d’expliquer des sujets juridiques complexes de manière compréhensible. Notre cours de français juridique à l’Université Catholique de Bruxelles (KU Brussel) attache dès lors beaucoup d’importance aux textes vulgarisateurs. De plus, comme il s’agit d’un cours à la fois de français sur objectif spécifique et de français langue étrangère, les textes grand public s’avèrent une piste commode conduisant vers le discours juridique proprement dit. 
A des fins scientifiques et didactiques, nous avons publié fin 2006 un inventaire des outils mis à la disposition – en Belgique, en France et au Canada – des usagers francophones du droit et avons tenté une première appréciation de l’accessibilité tant logistique que linguistique. 
Parmi la vaste panoplie nous distinguons les publications papier, électroniques et audiovisuels, ainsi que les dispositifs présenciels. Le choix est très important et parfois déroutant, allant du récit littéraire à l’e-zine juridique de vulgarisation. Le type d’informations véhiculées par ces médias s’avère hétéroclite et leur pertinence peut souvent être remise en question. Selon les instances émettrices d’informations juridiques, certains supports sont privilégiés. Par contre, nous savons peu sur les préférences du grand public pour tel média ou tel autre. Toujours est-il que l’efficacité de ces canaux de communication vulgarisante doit être soumise à un questionnement approfondi. Le même principe vaut pour l’accessibilité linguistique: dans quelle mesure ces textes conçus pour les publics francophones visés sont-ils clairs et atteignent-ils leur but ?  
Notre contribution offrira des pistes de recherche et, en marge, des indices sur l’exploitabilité de ces ressources vulgarisantes dans le cursus de français juridique.

Raquel Martínez Motos – Adelina Gómez González-Jover
University of Alicante (Spain)
raquel.motos@ua.es – adelina.gomez@ua.es

Anisomorphism in the Translation of Legal Texts:
A Comparative Study of the English and Spanish Law of Succession

The aim of this paper is twofold, on the one hand, to discuss two issues intricately related to the process and product of translation, i.e. equivalence and anisomorphism and, on the other hand, to demonstrate the potential use of comparative studies as a useful tool in the field of legal translation.
Most of the definitions of translation, or legal translation in our case, contain a key word: ‘equivalence’, Translation ultimately consists in finding in the target language the linguistic unit containing the equivalent meaning of the unit expressed in the source language. Equivalence literally refers to an equation whose terms are interchangeable in both directions. However, it is common knowledge that the complete correspondence of two sets in both directions does not exist as such, that is, there is not a one-to-one correspondence between the term on the right and the term on the left. Anisomorphism, which roughly speaking means “asymmetry”, refers to the losses and gains that there are always in interlinguistic transfer processes, and which may be taken into account when comparing two different language systems. Even though there are many other difficulties that professionals and students must overcome in the translation process of legal texts, cultural anisomorphism is a major issue that should be approached by means of comparative studies. The analysis of several illustrative examples from the field of Succession in this paper will serve as a small-scale model of other prospective large-scale studies that would provide both students and translators with a useful tool to systematize the translation process of certain legal concepts. 
The reflections contained in this paper have been tackled in the framework of several research projects carried out within the IULMA (Interuniversitary Institute for Applied Modern Languages of Alicante) and supervised by Prof. Dr. Enrique Alcaraz Varó.

Borislav Marušić
Fachhochschule Lavoslav Ružička Vukovar (Kroatien)
       borislav.marusic@vk.t-com.hr

Funktionsverbgefüge in der deutschen Verwaltungssprache

Das Ziel dieser Arbeit ist die Wichtigkeit der grammatischen Struktur, die im Deutschen Funktionsverbgefüge genannt ist,  an Beispielen der deutschen Verwaltungssprache zu untersuchen. Zu diesem Zweck werden die Kollokationen aus dem Korpus aufgrund einiger deutscher Gesetztexte des Sachgebiets Verwaltung analysiert werden. Die Analyse des Korpuses nach verschiedenen Merkmalen wird den Jurastudenten aber auch  Linguisten und  daran interessierten Juristen bei der Beherrschung der Verwaltungssprache behilflich sein und ihnen dabei eine neue Dimension und Ansicht nicht nur zum eigenen Fach sondern auch zur Fachsprache und  zur deutschen Sprache im allgemeinen öffnen.

Heikki E. S. Mattila
University of Lapland, Rovaniemi (Finland)
Heikki.Mattila@ulapland.fi

Legal Language in Regular Law Studies
The Experiences Gained at the University of Lapland (Finland)

Language is the basic instrument of all legal work. The ability to understand and produce legal texts and the ability to communicate with other lawyers and laypeople are among the key capacities every lawyer needs. This is why certain studies of legal linguistics, i.e. studies dealing with legal language(s), in the University of Lapland, are compulsory for all law students, and they are also offered optional complementary courses in this field. At the beginning of their studies, the law students are given a basic course on the functions and characteristics of legal language, as well as on legal terminology. In this way, the students' understanding of the relationship between law and language grows deeper. In the latter part of the studies, comparative aspects are emphasized. The students develop their capability for international legal cooperation through a course in the history and fundamental characteristics of major legal languages, especially English, French and German. During these studies, the Latin background of modern legal languages, as well as their mutual relationships and international use, particularly in the European Union, are also discussed.  Simultaneously, the students’ mastery of languages is developed through general language courses. The present paper describes this study system and deals with the experiences gained. 

Davide Mazzi
University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Modena (Italy)
davide.mazzi@unimore.it

‘His explanation […] would be discreditable if true; but I am satisfied that it is a lie’:
Discursive Strategies of Self-Projection in Equity Judgments

The linguistic study of judicial argumentation has acquired increasing importance over the last two decades. In particular, attention has been paid to the dialogic nature of legal discourse as well as to the strategies employed by judges in order to project themselves into the argumentation they construct in judgments. In spite of the apparently impersonal note of judicial argumentation, these studies show that judges very often make their argumentative voice audible on the surface of text, and in doing so they interact with a multiplicity of concurring or competing voices, e.g. the parties in the dispute. The aim of this paper is to explore the most pervasive discursive strategies of self-projection characterising judgments delivered by the Chancery Division of the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. By comparing this court, which traditionally deals with issues of equity, with House of Lords judgments, it is apparent that Chancery Division judges typically make use of phraseological clusters (e.g. I am satisfied that…, I do not accept… and I find that…) in order to foreground their argumentative voice. The qualitative study presented in the paper will shed light on the textual usage of those clusters, which act as significant tools to the dialogic construction of judicial argumentation. 

Devikamani  Menon – Maya David
University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur (Malaysia)
devim@um.edu.my – mayadavid@yahoo.com

English Language Skills for Law: A Malaysian Case Study

Malaysian lawyers must be bilingual – proficient both in the national language-Malay and English – the second most important language in the country. Malay isthe medium of instruction in national schools while English is taught as a subject and also used for the teaching of Mathematics and Science. Young Malaysians who are admitted into Law faculties  do not appear as comfortable with English as their counterparts 20 years ago.. The Law faculty in the University of Malaya has ruled that while some lectures are in Malay, all tutorials should be in English. The current presenter heading a research project entitled `English Language Skills for Law’ of which her co-presenter is also a member. Both presenters are also members of a team of teachers who are teaching the second year Law undergraduates a special English class - English for law. This enrichment course is taught for two hours a week for 28 weeks, over two semesters. This paper will describe the experimental syllabus which has been specially designed, and the impact of these sessions on the students. It will also discuss the feedback from the students and teachers with a view to re-evaluating the needs of the students. There is a special research funding for this project and  it ultimately aims to publish a textbook entitled  English Language Skills for Law.

Marianne Micha, 
University of Mannheim (Germany)
marianne.micha@web.de

Babel Today: On the Interpretation of Multilingual European Law

This paper criticizes the practice of the European Court of Justice (ECJ) when interpreting European multilingual legal acts and gives suggestions for improvement. 
Today, 23 official languages enrich Europe’s culture. Primary as well as secondary European law is equally binding in all of these languages. Both the ECJ and national courts have to take all the language versions into consideration equally when interpreting a European provision. By comparing the different language versions a uniform, autonomous interpretation has to be found. 
In practice, problems arise when the grammatical interpretation reveals inconsistencies between the different versions. The ECJ then relegates the grammatical interpretation and bases its decision on systematical and teleological grounds, even if the interpretation is not consistent with some language version.
Some scholars consider the wording of a provision to be of minor importance and support the ECJ. Since systematical and teleological arguments are accessible and foreseeable to the citizens, while a comparison of the wording is not, the ECJ promotes legal certainty. Others criticize the devaluation of the term’s meaning which stands in conflict to the language versions being the basis of the law.
The reason for the practical problems actually is that some basic principles are in conflict: The separation of powers forbids the courts to take the role of the legislator. The legal certainty demands decisions to be based on accessible and foreseeable arguments. Justified expectations of the citizens have to be respected. All the versions of European acts in the official languages are equally binding. The basic problem of the relation between law and language is discussed.
A suggestion on how to improve the interpretation of multilingual European provisions will be given by referring back to the basics of methodology and balancing out the principles of separation of powers, legal certainty and equality of the official languages.

Magdalena Nigoević 
University of Split (Croatia)
magda@ffst.hr 	

Indicatori di riformulazione nei testi giuridici

La presente comunicazione si concentra sul linguaggio giuridico che di solito viene denominato: insieme di sottolinguaggi (linguaggio del diritto pubblico, del diritto privato, del diritto penale), lingua speciale, lingua settoriale. In ogni caso si tratta di una varietà diatopica legata a contesti e funzioni specifiche, ricca di tecnicismi e di strategie retoriche e di diverse tecniche argomentative. 
Una delle caratteristiche salienti del linguaggio giuridico è il frequente uso degli schemi argomentativi che si realizzano con specifiche forme linguistiche. Nella lingua italiana, l'efficacia argomentativa si ottiene anche con l'uso abbastanza frequente delle espressioni che servono per indicare la conclusione di una certa argomentazione. Esse appartengono ai diversi elementi della riformulazione che consente la maggior coesione del testo, riduce l'eventuale difficoltà di comprensione e "facilita la comprensione dell'originale" . Tali elementi saranno studiati attraverso l'analisi di un corpus dei testi giuridici (testi da manuali scientifici, Codice Civile, Gazzetta Ufficiale, articoli giornalistici). L'attenzione sarà particolarmente rivolta agli 'indicatori di riformulazione'  e più precisamente ai cosidetti 'indicatori di conclusione': quindi, pertanto, dunque, cosi, sicché, perciò, di conseguenza, in conclusione, per questo motivo, per queste ragioni, si conclude che, ecc. L'attenzione verrà focalizzata sulla funzione, la frequenza e la particolarità dell'uso degli indicatori nei testi studiati. Si cercherà di stabilire la loro diversità e la possibilità di interscambiarli all'interno dei testi prescelti.

John Olsson
Forensic Linguistics Institute, Llanfair Caereinion, Powys (UK)
forensicling2003@yahoo.co.uk 	

Electronic Recording of Police Interviews: A Guarantee of Accuracy and Fairness?

A number of police recorded interviews are analysed and discussed, some with transcripts, to evaluate the question of whether recording of interviews guarantees accuracy of interview content and fairness of procedure. It is observed that accuracy and fairness does not always take place despite extensive legal safeguards in some jurisdictions. However, counter-examples of cases where interviewing and police station procedures were not electronically recorded are also given, and it is concluded that, in general, providing certain conditions are met, it is safer, fairer and more accurate to record proceedings electronically.

Juan Miguel Ortega Herráez 
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid (Spain)
ortega.juanmiguel@gmail.com

Fostering Co-operation in Multilingual Legal Settings:
How to Overcome the Idea of the Interpreter as an Intruder

This paper aims at analysing a major issue within interpreter mediated multilingual and multicultural legal proceedings, i.e. the interaction between the latter and other professionals working in legal settings. Within the field of Public Service Interpreting (PSI) it is widely acknowledged that there is a need to promote actions intended to foster cooperation between legal professionals and linguists, and some specific proposals have already been put forward to that end However, planning and implementation of such actions in Spain requires both prior understanding on the current relations between those two groups and a thorough analysis of the aspects shaping it.
By means of a questionnaire distributed among legal interpreters, this paper will focus on different aspects such as the perception that linguists consider other legal professionals have of them, issues that are at the source of problems within the interaction of both groups (access to information, limits to the role of the legal interpreter, etc.), and the expectations that they mutually have on the others’ task. The general conclusions of this questionnaire-based research, will serve as a basis for the proposal of some actions aimed at facilitating cooperation and better understanding between legal professionals and linguists in the Spanish context.

Viktorija Osolnik Kunc
University of Ljubljana (Slovenia) 
viktorija.osolnik – kunc@guest.arnes.si  

Fachkommunikative Verständlichkeit in der Verwaltungssprache:
Bürgernähe mit Aussichten?

Seit der Kognitiven Wende in den 80er Jahren des 20. Jahrhunderts hat sich das Thema der ‚Verständlichkeit‘ in der Sprache zu einem sozialen und sprachpolitisch motivierten Thema innerhalb der deutschsprachigen Linguistiken entwickelt Vor allem in der Verwaltungssprache. Die zunehmende Hinterfragung von Verständlichkeit verlagerte sich aus linguistischen Kreisen heraus in die Öffentlichkeit und rlebte lebhafte Diskussionen. Erörtert wurde der Grad der Fachlichkeit in der Verwaltungssprache, der eine Antwort unter anderem in der Textoptimierung gefunden zu haben schien. Bürgernahes Schreiben sollte die Kluft zwischen Verwaltung und Bürger schließen oder zumindest verengen. Diese Entwicklung ist in Deutschland und Österreich zu verfolgen, in Slowenien hingegen wurde bislang der Aspekt der Verständlichkeit weder in der Verwaltungssprache noch im linguistischen Disurs kaum wahrgenommen.
Der Beitrag bietet einen Überblick aus linguistischer Sicht zum Stand der Wissenschaft in Slowenien im Vergleich zu Deutschlandund Österreich an und überprüft die Bürgernähe in deutschen Verwaltungsschreiben, die in einer Untersuchung aus 2004 von deutschen Muttersprachlern gelesen und bewertet wurde. Unter Anwendung des Karlsruher Verständlichkeitsmodells von Susanne Göpferich sollen die Ergebnisse Aufschluss darüber geben, welchen Nutzen die Verständlichkeitsforschung im Bereich der Rechts‐ bzw. der Verwaltungssprache geleistet hat, und ob sie das Ziel der fachkommunikativen Verständlichkeit in der Verwaltungssprache erreicht hat.

Dubravka Papa
Josip Juraj Strossmayer University, Osijek (Croatia)
dpapa@pravos.hr

Legal Aspects of American Political Phraseology

The paper deals with legal terminology  within the phraseology of American political discourse. It presents specific legal aspects of political language and interprets the metaphors, the cultural background of the phraseological units as well as the aspect of political correctness that is mainly a linguistic phenomenon.
Since language of law cannot keep out of politics, legal linguistic issues are of political nature, and both politics and language reflect existing social conditions. In dealing with a corpus of American political phraseological units, the question arises as to whether  phraseological units are necessary for denoting objects without calling up mental pictures of them in order to let the meaning choose the word, and not the other way around.

Sieglinde E. Pommer
Harvard Law School (USA)
spommer@post.harvard.edu

Legal Translation as Intercultural Expert Communication:
What Role for Comparative Legal Analysis?

The Cultural Turn in Translation Studies has promoted the understanding of translation as mediation between cultures raising difficult questions about how to handle divergent culture-specific assumptions and associations. The plenary investigates the applicability of the cultural approach to the special case of legal translation exploring the complex interaction of culture, law, and communication with a special focus on the important role of comparative legal analysis in the framework of global legal discourse.
Legal discourse can be defined as an institutionalized way of thinking, defining the limits of acceptable speech on law-related matters. As professional discourse, the law uses technical language to define what the law is and to explain rules and procedures for understanding and applying the law. Despite the fact that the law exists to solve human problems and regulate human conduct, it typically presents abstract principles, using technical words and phrases. Legal discourse belongs to the knower of a very special vocabulary and grammar and is the expression of a legal culture special to a specific legal order. 
Legal culture may be understood as a diversity of overlapping cultures: some relatively local, some more universal providing a shifting context for multilingual international legal communication about common legal issues to be solved across legal families and traditions. Global lawyers and legal translators are confronted with the asymmetry of legal systems, the relativity of concepts, and have to deal with inconsistent categorizations and classifications. Their task as cultural mediators is to adequately communicate information about foreign law specifically taking into account the divergent previous knowledge of the target audience in order to avoid misunderstandings. 
Questioning how legal information is possibly altered by its transmission from one legal system and legal language to another and demonstrating how cultural embeddedness conditions legal translation, this presentation identifies the major challenges of international legal discourse due to the complex institutional structure of legal knowledge expressing legal culture-specific mentalité. Concretizing the overlapping concerns of culture and communication in their attempts to more clearly grasp the phenomenon of law in this era of globalization, this presentation suggests strategies for legal translation as an increasingly important form of intercultural expert communication highlighting the significance of comparative legal insights for bridging legal cultural gaps.

Louise Rayar
Maastricht University (Netherlands)
w.rayar@ir.unimaas.nl

Legal Translation as a Tool for Teaching Legal Research Skills

In the first year of the European Law School Programme at Maastricht University, students are offered a fourteen-week practical entitled ‘Introduction to Comparative Law’. As the language of instruction is English, student participation is truly international and may entail having as many as ten nationalities in one class. The objective of this practical is to train students in finding and documenting appropriate sources for their comparative research work and to have them take the first modest steps in comparing different legal systems. Writing about different legal systems in a foreign language implies translation. To prepare students for such work, two of the assignments involve translating a legal text from English into Dutch, French, German or Spanish. 
The approach will be illustrated with the aid of translations of nationality law based on treaty and national law. Particular attention is given to retrieving terminology and phraseology that is specific to the subject matter. What translation options are there, if any? How and why does one opt for a particular translation? First, they need to make an inventory of – suspected – terms of art and phraseology featuring in the source text. Subsequently, they must find translation options through consulting relevant target-language documents. Translation solutions must be verifiable through proper referencing. The students are required to fully state their sources, both in footnotes and in the accompanying bibliography. Sources may be found at the local law library or in databases of national and international institutions that may be accessed via the Internet. Finding and correctly stating sources and justifying translation solutions will prepare students for producing scholarly writing of an increasingly comparative nature. 

Colin Robertson
Council of EU, Brussels (Belgium)
Colin.Robertson@consilium.europa.eu

Multilingual Law: What is it? How is it Made? How is it Used and Applied?

This paper poses three questions: what is multilingual law, how is it made and how is it used and applied?  The questions are chosen so as to provide a simple structure for organising and presenting information about multilingual law within the limits of the available time and space. The paper aims at non-specialists as well as linguistic and legal specialists.
The first question invites a definition of multilingual law, as law expressed in more than one language, and allows us to explore differences from monolingual legal systems, notably as regards the role of translation, terminology and term-equivalence across languages. Secondly, different 'types' of legal system are identified, in particular national law, international law, supranational law (EU law), and the multilingual dimension to each of these legal orders is explored.
The second question shifts the focus to the methods of law creation; while there is a role for private contract, the main emphasis is on legislative procedures. The paper outlines a typical model for making monolingual national law and then demonstrates what changes, and why, when the context is multilingual. Differences in approach arising under the three legal orders are canvassed and some specific practical terminology issues are discussed.
The third question provides a basis for examining two aspects: first the practical application of multilingual law; second, its interpretation and enforcement by the courts. Against an outline of a typical monolingual scenario, attention is drawn to differences affecting multilingual legal systems, within the context of the three legal orders. Emphasis is placed on translation, terminology and term equivalence.
The paper concludes with a few pertinent observations covering the following: the relevance of multilingual law in modern life; distinguishing features, such as translation, multilingual drafting, legal-linguistic revision and linguistic theory, alongside law, economics and policy-making; the interconnections between the different legal orders, and their superposition, in everyday life; the consequent need for skilled practitioners, proper training and attention to detail and quality.

Siniša Rodin 
Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb (Croatia)
srodin@inet.hr 	

Justifying Restrictions of Individual Rights under the Croatian Constitution and in Community Law – Linguistic or Conceptual Differences?

Croatian Constitution provides for a number of justifications for restriction of Constitutional rights. General justifications under Art. 16 are protection of rights of third persons, legal order, public morality and public health, while specific justifications are associated with particular Constitutional rights. For example, restriction of a right to free enterpreneurship under Art 50(2) can be justified on grounds of protection of national interest and national security, protection of nature and environment, and public health. Typical justifications of fundamental market freedoms in Community law can be, but are not limited to, public policy, public security and public health.
The author discussess justifications for restriction of fundamental rights under Croatian Constitution and compares them to justifications of restriction of fundamental freedoms in Community law. The main proposition of the paper is that differences between justifications in Croatian and in Community law are not merely linguistic but conceptual, the main conceptual difference being the understanding of protected sphere of individual from regulatory encroachment. While the difference between concepts of „national interest“ and „public interest“ is both linguistic and conceptual, other justifications, notably „public morality“ and „public health“, correspond in linguistic terms but still differ conceptually. As Croatian courts rarely question national interest, as defined by legislation, making Croatian justifications compatible with Community standards requires not only linguistic adjustment of relevant legal provisions, but  a paradigmatic shift in understanding of relationship between individual and the State. 

Stanisław Goźdź-Roszkowski
University of Łódź, (Poland)
roszkowski@uni.lodz.pl 

          Using Co-Text to Cope with Vagueness in Legal Lexical Units:  A Case Study in the Opinions of the United States Supreme Court.

    A budding translator or any other LSP user, for that matter,  is often faced with a bewildering variety of  synonymous or related terms. For example, the semantic field ‘revoke’ contains lexical items such as: ‘annul’,   ‘cancel’, ‘dismiss’, ‘overrule’, ‘quash’, ‘strike out’, ‘recall’, or ‘reverse’,  to name just a few (cf. Alcaraz & Hughes 2002). This area of legal lexis appears to be seriously neglected. As of today, there are hardly any lexicographic resources (e.g. bilingual thesauri, dictionaries of synonyms or antonyms) that could effectively clarify the nuances of meaning and usage involved in the above array of terms. Other sources, such as law textbooks or handbooks on legal English usually do not even recognize this as a problem. In fact, despite the increase in the number of teaching materials on legal English available on the market, most are not tailored to the needs of an LSP user with a language-oriented or linguistic background. 
In my talk, I will demonstrate how by quering  a representative, balanced corpus of legal texts it is possible to identify dominant phraseological patterns of such related terms, which can be then used, to a certain extent, for their disambiguation. The examples will focus on a few selected terms found in a 1,000,000 word corpus of opinions handed down by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. The latest version of the Oxford WordSmith Tools 4.0 was used to carry out a detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis. It appears that only by building a systematic and exhaustive phraseological profile, an LSP user can gain a meaningful insight into the usage of legal terminology. Such knowledge goes beyond the simple co-occurrence of lexical items and involves identifying significant multi-word combinations, colligational patterns, sentential and/or textual positioning, frequency and distribution in legal sub-domains. Naturally, this type of information is intended to complement, not replace, the conceptual, system-bound knowledge available in traditional resources. 

Tarja Salmi-Tolonen
University of Turku (Finland)
tasato@utu.fi

The Arbitrator’s Tale

This presentation discusses the construction of arbitration reality in arbitrators’ talk. The analyses are based on interviews conducted with experienced arbitrators, male and female, lawyers and non-lawyers, in the US and Europe. 
The focus of analysis is on the degree of recontextualisation of meaning manifest in the conducted interviews. The analyses have an exploratory purpose for collecting richer data about arbitration practices and also individual arbitrators’ practices. 

Peter Sandrini 
University of Innsbruck (Austria)
peter.sandrini@uibk.ac.at
 Der transkulturelle Vergleich von Rechtsbegriffen

Die Definition und der Vergleich von Rechtsbegriffen sind Gegenstand der Rechtstheorie sowie in der Folge auch der Rechtsvergleichung. Sie gewinnen durch die multilinguale und rechstvergleichende Terminologiearbeit und durch das Übersetzen von Rechtstexten an Bedeutung und wurden bereits – mit unterschiedlichem Blickwinkel – in die terminologische und translationstheoretische Diskussion eingearbeitet. Neuere kognitive Ansätze der Linguistik und der Translationswissenschaft sowie das Einbeziehen moderner erkenntnistheoretischer und kulturwissenschaftlicher Konzepte in die Rechtsvergleichung  lassen ein Überdenken der grundlegenden Vorgangsweise beim Vergleich von Rechtsbegriffen notwendig erscheinen. Der Beitrag versucht, die elementaren Bausteine einer inhaltlichen Gegenüberstellung von Begriffen aus unterschiedlichen Rechtsordnungen dar zu stellen und die sich daraus ergebenden Schlussfolgerungen für die Terminologiearbeit sowie die Translation zu formulieren.

Eamonn Shanahan 
Freelance Business/Legal English Trainer (Croatia) 
eamonn.shanahan@btinternet.com

The Teaching of Legal English to Practising Professionals

The teaching of legal English to practising professionals reflects the teaching of general English in its priorities. These pirorities can be summarised by the following breakdown of areas focussed on in a traditional course of study:
1.themes and materials – eg Terms and Conditions of a Contract, European Community Law etc.
2. skills – which are traditionally divided into the productive skills of writing and speaking and the receptive skills of reading and listening, but, for the purposes of my argument in this presentation, I will divide into the written language skills of reading and writing, and the spoken language skills of listening and speaking
3. vocabulary – including the range of lexical skills such as word building, guessing definitions from context, recognising jargon etc
4. language and structure – essentially grammar, ie morphology and syntax.
I will propose: firstly, that the teaching of legal English to practising professionals is essentially the teaching of lexical skills; and secondly, that such teaching should focus significantly on the spoken language skills of listening and speaking, instead of the written language skills of reading and writing.
To illustrate my arguments I will refer to the International Legal English Certificate coursebook (Amy Krois Lindner & Translegal, Cambridge University Press, 2005), to my personal experience of being a lawyer, and finally to my experience as a trainer of legal English.

Ingrid Simonnæs
Norwegische Wirtschaftsuniversität (NHH), Bergen (Norway)
Ingrid.Simonnas@nhh.no

Überlegungen zur Bildung eines elektronischen Korpus
zwecks Analyse von Übersetzungen von Rechtstexten in Übersetzungen

Das Übersetzen von Fachtexten verlangt neben den normalerweise vorausgesetzten (Teil)kompetenzen ausreichende (ggf. noch zu erarbeitende) Kompetenz im betreffenden Fach. Für den Übersetzer von Rechtstexten als einer Untergruppe von Fachtexten bedeutet die Fachkompetenz auch, einen Rechtsvergleich vornehmen zu können. Erst nach einem Vergleich der Rechtssysteme, die durch das jeweilige Gesellschaftssystem geprägt und bedingt sind, kann der Übersetzer unter Berücksichtigung von Aufgabenstellung seitens des Auftragsgebers adäquat von der Ausgangskultur und -sprache (AK /AS) in die Zielkultur und -sprache (ZK /ZS) übersetzen.
An der Norwegischen Wirtschaftsuniversität (NHH) wird seit bald 30 Jahren die nationale Übersetzerprüfung (statsautorisert translatøreksamen), abgehalten, bei der immer ein Rechtstext zu übersetzen ist. Hier liegt mit anderen Worten ein reichhaltiges empirisches Material vor. Aufgrund der Prüfungsvorschriften sind die Texte i.d.R. Auszüge, und erst in jüngster Zeit (seit 2006) liegen die (meisten) Antworten in elektronischer Form vor.
Dies hat dazu geführt, dass in diesem Jahr (2007) ein gemeinsames Forschungsprojekt in Angriff genommen worden ist, bei dem die Prüfungsleistungen aus dem Norwegischen in die vier großen europäischen Sprachen, Deutsch, Englisch, Französisch und Spanisch, in eine zu annotierende Datenbank eingegeben werden. Auf der Grundlage der Datenbank lassen sich unterschiedliche Phänomene bottom-up oder top-down dann leichter untersuchen.
In meinem Beitrag greife ich Beispiele aus Übersetzungen von Rechtstexten heraus, die (1) aus Zeiten vor der Errichtung der Datenbank stammen und (2) die in der Datenbank vorhanden sind, wodurch für den letzten Teil auch ein Vergleich nicht nur für das Sprachenpaar Norwegisch-Deutsch, sondern auch (vorerst) für das Sprachenpaar Norwegisch-Englisch möglich wird. Da das deutsche und das englische Rechtssystem zwei unterschiedlichen Rechtskreisen angehören, kann, so meine Erwartung, der Übersetzungsvergleich deutliche(re) Beispiele bringen, wann und wo AK und ZK auseinanderklaffen und welche Übersetzungslösungen vorgefunden wurden. Aufgrund des im Vergleich zu anderen Corpora geringeren Umfangs wird es sich dabei um eine qualitative Analyse drehen.

Tamara Sladoljev-Agejev – Jasminka Pecotić-Kaufman
University of Zagreb (Croatia)
tagejev@efzg.hr – jpecotic@efzg.hr

Legal English in an Advanced Business English Course in Croatia:
Identifying and Resolving Ambiguities

Business English (BE) courses taught in the first and second year at the Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Zagreb, are aimed at developing students' knowledge of core vocabulary and communication skills within a number of topics ranging from marketing to macroeconomics. Legal English (LE) plays a significant role in the syllabi of the courses underlining the growing need for teachers to make their students aware of nuances of meaning in three interrelated disciplines: language, business and law. This calls for a teaching approach characterised by content and language integrated learning (CLIL) supported by interdisciplinary cooperation of the teacher with experts in business and law. 
The authors point to possible sources of terminological confusion and misinterpretation in the elements of the BE syllabi clearly showing overlaps between the language of business and law:  the establishment of a business (company formation), management of a company, corporate finance and fundamental changes in a company (mergers and acquisitions). It first presents reasons for current ambiguities, i.e. the impact of different legal traditions and  systems (Roman-Civil-Continental legal traditions vs. Common Law tradition), differences in business and legal interpretations, and terminological inconsistencies in Croatian itself (legal terms vs. commonly used terms). The paper then proceeds with specific examples of terminological difficulties in the above mentioned fields and attempts to resolve common dilemmas. 

Guadalupe Soriano Barabino
University of Granada (Spain)
barabino@ugr.es

Legal Curriculum for Training Legal Translators

Legal translation is part of the curriculum at the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation of the University of Granada, Spain. In the third year, students have to compulsorily translate both from their first foreign language into Spanish and from Spanish into their first foreign language, but most of them do not have any previous knowledge of Law. Law subjects are offered to students during their training but only on an optional basis and not all of them decide to follow any of these subjects. Moreover, in most cases these subjects are organised by members of the Law Faculty with little or no knowledge of the professional reality or of the training needs of legal translators. This results in translation classes being partly devoted to training students in the theoretical aspects of Law in Spain and in (some of) the countries of their first foreign language.
At a time of educational changes all over Europe and within the framework of the European Higher Education Area, it is the right moment to ask ourselves if current curricula are adequate to train the professionals required by Europe. 
As a professional legal translator trained both in Law and in Translation and teaching legal translation at the Faculty of Translation and Interpretation of the University of Granada, in my presentation I will insist on the different aspects that should be contained in Law subjects aimed to train legal translators in today’s Europe and will suggest a possible curriculum for the training of legal translators.

Inmaculada Soriano García
Université de Grenade (Spain)
isoriano@ugr.es

L’enseignement de la terminologie juridique aux futurs traducteurs

La terminologie, en tant qu’outil nécessaire à la traduction spécialisée, est enseignée à la Faculté de traduction et d´interprétation de l’Université de Grenade. Ainsi, avant de s’initier à la traduction juridique (TJ), les étudiants reçoivent les fondements théoriques qu´ils mettront en application lors de la traduction de textes juridiques. L´enseignement de la terminologie (aspects théoriques et pratiques) est donc déterminant.  
Cet article présente une étude empirique réalisée à partir de l’expérience de ces étudiants. Afin d’illustrer la spécificité et l’importance d’une adéquate formation terminologique dans le cadre de la Maîtrise en traduction et interprétation, deux groupes d’étudiants recevant une formation terminologique différente, aborderont la traduction d’un texte juridique spécialisé (du français vers l’espagnol). Les résultats obtenus permettront de tirer des conclusions quant au contenu de la formation que doivent recevoir les futurs traducteurs.

Maria Spassova – Tim Grant
Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona (Spain) – Aston University, Birmingham (UK)
maria.stefanova@upf.edu – t.d.grant@aston.ac.uk

Categorizing Spanish Written Texts by Author Gender
and Origin by Means of Morpho-Syntactic Trigrams:
Some Observations on Method’s Feasibility of Application for Linguistic Profiling

This paper explores the applicability of morpho-syntactically annotated tag sequences(MATS) as a classification measure in Spanish written text categorization by author’s gender and origin. We base our hypothesis that MATS can effectively function as discriminant feature in categorization by author gender on previous studies reporting lexical and syntactic differences between male and female writing. The same distinction is described in related literature as characteristic of Peninsular and Latin American Spanish and thus supports our second hypothesis that written texts can be correctly classified by author’s origin. 
To test our hypotheses, we carried out a series of experiments on two sets of texts produced by eight contemporary native Spanish speaking novelists. Each set represented one of the two major Spanish language variants, Peninsular or Latin American, and was comprised by a total of 100 equally distributed  sample writings from four authors. The method of analysis used is a combination of statistical methods we have so far been successfully applying in research on forensic authorship attribution by means of syntactic identification markers. With 97% of correctly classified groups from both gender and origin tests, the results from the analysis based on MATS suggest that these are reliable measure of categorization. The paper concludes with a further discussion on MATS reliability and validity with regards to its possible application as measure in a forensic setting.

Susan Šarčević
Faculty of Law, University of Rijeka (Croatia) 
susan.sarcevic@pravri.hr

A Terminological Jungle: Creating EU Legal Terms in Croatian

The creation of EU legal terminology in Croatian is taking place at a sensitive time when the Croatian language, the badge of national identity, has been undergoing a process of purification in all areas, including the law. The lawmaking machinery has been in high gear since 1991, churning out revisions of major laws and new laws introducing not only substantive changes but also widespread terminological innovations. The current linguistic evolution has made lawyers keenly aware of the vital role of language in the law and the need to build a concise and coherent national legal vocabulary. 
This also applies to the creation of EU legal terminology in Croatian, an ongoing process that is largely the result of translation on a case-by-case basis without a coordinated set of strategies by a team of subject specialists and linguists. The glossaries and other translation aids provided are extremely helpful but cover only a small percentage of the total EU vocabulary and the Croatian terms therein have not been endorsed as official equivalents. As a result, the formation of EU terms in Croatian can presently be described as a terminological jungle where cooperation between lawyers and linguists is sorely needed. Focusing on terminological problems in translations of selected EU directives in the field of consumer protection law, this paper attempts to show how terminological inconsistencies and mistranslations can have a negative impact on the transposition of directives into national law and consequently on the alignment of Croatian legislation with the EU acquis. One of the main problems is that the translations have not been revised by lawyers and that lawyers are often not confronted with specific problems of term formation until called upon to transpose the directives into national law. Thus the process of EU term formation continues in the drafting phase and is not finalized until the final act has been adopted by the Croatian Parliament, at which point the Croatian EU terms finally become official equivalents.

P. Sture Ureland
Universität Mannheim (Germany) 
sture.ureland@elama.de

Cultural Roofing and Europeanization of Scandinavia with Special Reference to Medieval Laws

In this paper I will discuss some aspects of language contact in medieval law texts with special reference to Old Danish and Old Swedish, whereby some descriptive and methodological viewpoints will also be dealt with. First, the general transfer of cultural, technical, legal, religious and linguistic information from the medieval European centres in the south to the peripheral areas in northern Europe is well-known and has been profusely documented in early legal documents and royal texts and chronicles, i.e. those written in Medieval Latin and , equally important, in Old English and Middle Low German. Before the earliest influence on the Scandinavian languages from the south will be dealt with, the whole ethno-political and contact-linguistic scenario of Christianization, centralism and medieval multilingualism must be discussed which are often the causes of linguistic change. This natural or learned multilingualism especially refers to the documentation and codification of medieval law texts collected and composed by learned multilingual monks at monasteries and royal clerks at chancelleries or educated private persons who had acquired a knowledge of Latin and Middle Low German. In addition, we will draw upon the ethno-political view of the rise of the early Medieval Scandinavian languages as being Ausbau-languages in the north with Latin, Middle German or Middle English as roofing languages in the sense of Kloss. This gives us a much broader European view of the codification process underlying the rise of Old Danish or Old Swedish to full-fledged instruments of legislation, royal centralisation and Christianization in Scandinavia during the 12th - 14th centuries, in a period which on the Continent is characterised by a “Revival of Jurisprudence” and increasing influence from Roman and Canon Law in Scandinavia.

Sonia Vaupot
University of Ljubljana (Slovenia)
sonia.vaupot@guest.arnes.si

Quelques réflexions sur la traduction des textes juridiques en français

La traduction spécialisée revêt actuellement une importance croissante. En effet, les problèmes spécifiques de traduction des textes spécialisés pénètrent tous les niveaux de la langue, entre autres le domaine du style, de la syntaxe et de la terminologie. Par ailleurs, il est devenu banal d’ajouter que les textes juridiques ont pour principale spécificité de faire référence à des systèmes et à des logiques de pensée ancrés dans une culture bien particulière.
Dans notre communication, il s’agira de nous demander quelles sont les particularités inhérentes au langage juridique en français. Dans un premier temps, nous esquisserons quelques orientations appliquées à la traduction spécialisée et nous mettrons en évidence certains problèmes d'ordre linguistique inhérents aux textes juridiques. En effet, pour assurer la transmission d’un contenu juridique, les problèmes spécifiques de traduction des textes spécialisés pénètrent tous les niveaux de la langue. Ainsi, il s’agira de mettre en évidence les difficultés classiques de la traduction juridique. D'abord, le domaine du style, de la syntaxe et de la grammaire. Puis, le domaine des notions spécifiques véhiculées par un vocabulaire spécialisé. 

Olga Voronkova
University of Mannheim (Germany)
olgaVoronkova@msn.com 	

Das Recht und die Minderheitensprachen in Polen, Litauen und Weissrussland

1. Das Problem der Rechte der nationalen Minderheiten in den Sowjetrepubliken Litauen und Weissrussland sowie in dem sozialistischen Polen war nie ein Diskussionsthema. Im Grundgesetz  der Länder wurde es auch nicht präzisiert, was eine Minderheit bedeutet, über welche Rechte eine Minderheit verfügt. Die Probleme der Minderheitenrechte und Minderheitensprachen wurden nur administrativ gelöst und verwaltet. Die Minderheitensprachen in den drei Republiken wurden stark unterdrückt, wobei es um die polnische Sprache in Litauen und Weissrussland, die litauische Sprache in Polen und in Weissrussland und weissrussische Sprache in Litauen und Polen handelte.
2. Das sowjetische Schulsystem in Litauen und Weissrussland und das sozialistische Schulsystem in Polen zeichnete sich durch grosse Wiedersprüche und chaotische nationale Politik, die die Konfliktsituation nach der Wende wie eine Bombe auslöste.
3. Die Wende hat die nationale Spannung und Minderheitenprobleme aber nicht gelöst, umgekehrt wurden diese Probleme erst richtig zum Konfliktthema in allen drei Ländern. Die nationalen Minderheitenrechte wurden aber nur in den Grundgesetzen Litauens und Polens formuliert. In Weissrussland blieb es bis jetzt kein Thema. 
4. Das alte sowjetische Schulsystem in Weissrussland und Litauen hat die Problematik der Minderheitensprachen nicht gelöst, sondern nur zugespitzt. Das sozialistische Schulsystem Polens wurde durch ein mehr oder weniger einheitliches demokratischeres System ersetzt und die Problematik der Minderheitensprachen hat aufgehört ein Konfliktthema zu sein. 
5. Die Rechtslage der Minderheitenprobleme in allen drei Ländern ist heute ein breites Diskussionsthema in Litauen und Polen, wobei es bis jetzt überhaupt kein Gesprächsthema in Weissrussland ist. 

Eva Wiesmann
Università di Bologna (Italy)
wiesmann@sslmit.unibo.it

Der Sprachgebrauch des Notars.
Analyse und Übersetzung phraseologischer Wortverbindungen
aus italienischen notariellen Urkunden

Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt sich aus dem Blickwinkel des Übersetzers mit den verschiedenen Arten von phraseologischen Wortverbindungen auseinander, die in italienischen notariellen Urkunden unterschiedlicher Rechtsgebiete (wie insbesondere dem Bürgerlichen Recht und dem Gesellschaftsrecht) üblicherweise vorkommen, in den Hilfsmitteln des Rechtsübersetzers aber allenfalls partiell dokumentiert sind und folglich bei der Übersetzung von notariellen Urkunden häufig Schwierigkeiten bereiten. Dazu werden anhand eines Korpus von italienischen notariellen Urkunden zunächst die Besonderheiten der ins Auge gefassten phraseologischen Wortverbindungen untersucht (wie z.B. der Festigkeitsgrad und die Bedeutungsspezialisierung, der elliptische Charakter und die Redundanzen bei Aufzählungen). Die Bedeutung und die Funktion der betreffenden Wortverbindungen im Text und im rechtlichen Kontext ist der Ausgangspunkt für die Frage nach der Übersetzung, die für Empfänger aus dem bundesdeutschen Recht bestimmt ist und daher die Untersuchung eines zweiten Korpus von bundesdeutschen notariellen Urkunden impliziert. Ausgehend von der für die Übersetzung von notariellen Urkunden typischen Situation, die als Übersetzungsfunktion die Funktion der Verständnishilfe vorsieht, werden Verfahren der Übersetzung der betreffenden Wortverbindungen herausgearbeitet. Der Beitrag schließt mit Überlegungen zur Möglichkeit der Aufbereitung der übersetzten phraseologischen Verbindungen in übersetzerischen Hilfsmitteln.

Christopher Williams
University of Foggia (Italy)
c.williams@lex.unifg.it

Scottish Parliament and Plain Language Legal Drafting

Although less than 10 years old, the Scottish Parliament has already changed its legislative drafting style. Following a long and fruitful debate about the need to reform legal drafting techniques, and acknowledging the importance of the Plain Language movement not only in Australia but also in Sweden, the Scottish Government published a booklet (also available online at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2006/02/17093804/1) in 2006 entitled Plain Language and Legislation. 
A number of changes are discernible in the way laws have been drafted by the Scottish Parliament even during the course of its brief existence, especially since 2006. My main aim in this paper is to highlight some of these changes by comparing some of the earliest legislative texts (dating from 1999) passed by the Scottish Parliament with some of the most recent texts. My analysis will be based on criteria such as:
– the frequency of use of must, be to and the present tense with respect to the controversial modal auxiliary shall
– the avoidance of archaic terms and legalese
– the preference for active rather than passive voice
– sentence length
– gender neutrality
– readability in general.
I also briefly discuss from an intercultural perspective some of the reasons why the Scottish Parliament has generally proved to be more willing to reform its legal drafting conventions than its counterparts in Cardiff, Belfast and Westminster, and whether the Scottish model could become a catalyst for changes in the way laws are drafted elsewhere in the UK.

Iwona Witczak-Plisiecka
University of Łódź (Poland)
wipw@uni.lodz.pl  

Translation in the Legal Context – Challenges for the General Theory of Translation

Drawing largely on the data from English and Polish, with limited reference to other languages, the present paper addresses the issues related to translation in the legal context. It offers a brief comparative discussion of the notions of translation and equivalence and points to the typological variety of translation (or reformulation) phenomena found on the intra- and inter-linguistic levels. 
Legal translation forms a very heterogeneous field due to the variety of situations in which legal language is used. It is also evident that even a relatively simple legal document may be translated in a number of different ways depending on the purpose of translation and demands of the party who commissions it. This multiplicity of forms and functions present in the domain of legal translation results in a serious dilemma how to formulate a general theory of translation. Such theory should be able to account for the mereology of legal translation situations and types as well as allow for a description of legal translation as its consistent subdomain. The paper comments on the problems in formulating such a theory.
The discussion includes reference to the Plain Language Movement and provides illustration of selected practical problems encountered in translation of legal normative texts between the Polish and the English language, also in the European dimension. 

Diana Yankova
New Bulgarian University, Sofia (Bulgaria)
dyankova@nbu.bg

On Some Aspects of Prescriptive Legal Texts in Continental, 
Common Law and Supranational Jurisdictions

The presentation will consider some differences in legal reasoning, structure and lexis across three diverse legal systems – those of Continental law, Common law and Community law drafting, as well as the implications of these differences for teaching English for Legal Purposes. 
Although legislation has one and the same function across cultures – it regulates behaviour – there are different ways of achieving this goal, which are culturally, historically and linguistically determined. This culture-specific and historically determined variation has bearings on the form and content of statutory writing in the three systems. In order to achieve a better synchronic analysis we have to take into consideration some diachronic factors such as: the origin of the systems, sources and structure of the law, the role of judicial decisions, discretionary powers of courts, among others.
It is through the study of both the universal features of generic activity, and of the variety of the processes in reaching this one and the same aim that can be of benefit to non-native students of English in navigating legal discourse.