Comparative Legilinguistics
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ARABIC LEGAL PHRASEOLOGY IN POSITIVE LAW AND JURISPRUDENCE: THE HISTORICAL INFLUENCE OF TRANSLATION
Get PDFThe present study examines Arabic legal phraseology formation from the standpoint of positive law and jurisprudence. It claims that phraseological constructions in Arabic legislative and statutory texts are largely influenced by the translation process of Roman law texts. However, scholarly literature still relies to some extent on formulae used in the Islamic jurisprudence. To illustrate this, three examples of legal principles anchored in Islamic jurisprundence, known as legal maxims, are discussed along with their corresponding expressions in positive law in modern-day Arabic. Ultimately, the purpose of this paper is twofold: firstly, to demonstrate that the phraseology present in many Arabic positive laws stems from a historical translation process that started in the beginning of the 20th century; secondly to emphasize the significance of textual genre awareness in legal translation. Concretely, the introductory section provides an overview of recent studies that have addressed legal phraseologisms. It is followed by a section on the historical role of translation in the construction of certain phraseologisms. The general legal principles of (a) burden of proof, (b) presumption of innocence, and (c) the pacta sunt servanda principle are then examined in order to shed light on the influence of both the Civilist tradition and Islamic jurisprudence on the use of legal Arabic today, as well as to demonstrate how the translation of phraseologisms is dependent on the parameters of genre. The analysis leads to the conclusion that proper use of phraseologisms, whether in drafting or translation, is closely linked to knowledge of phraseology formation and the historical influence of translation
CONCEPTUAL ORIGINS OF LEGAL LINGUISTICS
Get PDFThis essay is a survey of methods applied and topics scrutinized in legal-linguistic studies. It starts with the elucidation of the epistemic interest that led to the emergence and to the subsequent expansion of the mainstream legal-linguistic knowledge that we dispose of today. Thus, the essay focuses upon the development of problem awareness in the emerging legal-linguistic studies as well as upon the results of research that might be perceived as the state of the art in the mainstream legal linguistics. Meanwhile, some methodologically innovative tilts and twists that enrich and inspire contemporary legal linguistics are considered as well. Essentially, this essay traces the conceptual landscape in which the paradigms of legal-linguistic studies came about. This conceptual landscape extends from the research into the isolated words of law and the style used by jurists to the scrutiny of legal texts and legal discourses in all their socio-linguistic complexity. Within this broad frame of reference, many achievements in legal-linguistic studies are mentioned in order to sketch the consequences of processes in which legal-linguistic paradigms take shape. The author concludes upon a vision of legal linguistics called pragmatic legal linguistics as the newest stage in the intellectual enterprise that aims to pierce the language of the law and by so doing to understand law better
LAW AND LEGAL LINGUISTICS IN A CONSTANT STATE OF TRANSITION
Get PDFLegal linguistics or jurilinguistics as it has been called recently, is a relatively new field of research. The first research into the field started with analysing the content of laws (the epistemic stage). Later on, lawyers started being interested in manners of communicating laws (the heuristic stage). This Special Issue of Comparative Legilinguistics contains two texts devoted to the development of legal linguistics, legal languages and legal translation and two papers on an institutional stratification of legal linguistics. It is a continuation of research published in the same journal (Special Issue no. 45 titled “The Evil Twins and Their Silent Otherness in Law and Legal Translation”) providing some insights into the problems of communication in legal settings
RECONCEPTUALISING THE THIRD SPACE OF LEGAL TRANSLATION: A STUDY OF THE COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
Get PDFThis paper explores the concept of legal translation as a Third Space through the lens of the ‘multilingual’ Court of Justice of the European Union (ECJ). In many ways legal translation at that Court fits readily with the characterisation of translation as a Third Space. Due to complex internal production processes the ECJ produces texts which are undoubtedly hybrid in nature, and which exhibit distinctive features on a lexical and textual level marking them out as a product of cross-fertilisation of influences from source and target languages and legal cultures. Even the teleological approach taken towards legal reasoning at the ECJ occupies a space outside the strict confines of the texts involved. Both the processes and the product of the ECJ’s language system appear to bear all the hallmarks of translation as a Third Space. However, translation at the ECJ also challenges the concept of a Third Space. The prevailing definitions of translation as a Third Space fail to effectively conceptualise additional nuances of the specific nature of drafting and the complex nature of translation at the ECJ. This paper uses original empirical data to demonstrate that translation at the ECJ places constraints on the undefined, vague and fluid nature of the Third Space, warping the forces at work within that space. In this regard, rather than an amorphous space, the Third Space is better thought of as a determinate area which is delimited by elements of translation process which constrain it. This adapted framing of the Third Space can consequently be used to better understand and illustrate the dynamics at play in other areas of legal translation where the current concept of the Third Space is equally inadequate for encompassing the specific nature of translation practices which impact on that space-in-between
L’ABÎME DU SENS OU LE CHAUDRON DES SIGNES. SENS ET TERTIUM QUID : SHAKESPEARE TRADUCTEUR ?
Get PDFSum of atoms or molecules that are the signs that the author of a text organizes in speech, the text contains meaning, in latency. To activate it, reveal it must be interpreted, whether or not the purpose is to translate it. When it comes to translating, the difficulties presented by the translation of normative texts are due in large part to the notional burden, the degree of “juridical status” of the message conveyed by the text and the cultural singularity revealed by its mode of writing. While the substance of a text is of paramount importance in its interpretation, the manner in which it is written and presented – its form – is far from negligible. Each way of saying carries its own, and participates in the, meaning. The approach defined for the translation, sourcing (least-cultural) or targeting (most-cultural), guides the meaning. That is when the final interpretation of the two versions of the instrumental text by the courts fulfils the canonical function of law and language: to say the law by determining the meaning of all or part of a text. Until then, the signs generating the speech and its meaning nested in this place of uncertainty that is the tertium quid, where rest, like the ingredients that the Sisters of Destiny (Macbeth) stir in their cauldron, the signs of where meaning will come out, an uncertain and precarious truth deduced by the original interpreter of the instrumental text, the translator, transcribed into the target text. Would Shakespeare provide an answer to the existential questions posed by the translator, when the spectre (Hamlet) and the witches (Macbeth), enigmatic oracles, answer the protagonists\u27 ontological questions about the meaning and direction of their lives? The bard indeed launches this injunction: keep law and form and due proportion in Richard II (3.4.43)! Will the translator follow him in each of these three directions
TRANSLATION AS A CATALYST IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN CHINESE LEGAL LANGUAGE
Get PDFThis paper focuses translation of legal language and the development of modern Chinese legal language as a translated legal language. It first describes the historical contexts in which China underwent enormous and unprecedented social and political changes including changes to law in the late 1800s and early 1900s. It then discusses how translation played an important catalyst role in introducing Western law, legal practices, legal concepts and terminology in the emerging modern Chinese legal language as we know it today, and in the process, lent a helping hand in negotiating China’s transition to modernity through translation and creating a new legal language and legal system. It also considers the issues in translingual and cross-cultural communication and understanding translated Chinese legal language.
 
人称代词在英汉法制新闻中的修辞功能与特征比较研究
Get PDFThis paper mainly discusses the distribution and rhetorical functions of personal pronouns in English and Chinese legal news reports. Through the comparative analysis of some English and Chinese legal news texts, this paper finds the following points: English and Chinese legal news generally have two narrative types: objective narrative and semi-dialogic narrative. The differences in narrative type directly affect the distribution of personal pronouns. In objective narrative, the use of third person pronouns accounts for an absolute proportion, and the frequency of using first person and second person pronouns is close to zero. In semi-dialogic narrative, the use of third person pronouns is still the highest, but only slightly higher than the use of first person and second person pronouns, accounting for only a small number. After analysis, this paper holds that there are three reasons for the uneven distribution: first, the differences between the dialogic style and the narrative style; second, the legal narrative being a story narrative; third, the specific restrictions on the use of legal rhetoric
HOMO JURIDICUS E(S)T HOMO LUDENS : UNE RENCONTRE SPECTACULAIRE
No full textDans cette recherche jurilinguistique sur les liens qui existent entre les concepts de « justice » et « jeu » à travers les discours médiatiques et littéraires, il a été mis en évidence l’impact émotionnel des normes qui régissent la société et qui affectent, même étymologiquement parlant, les membres de chaque groupe social. L’identité individuelle et collective se construisent grâce au jeu, élément socialisant par excellence, sous ses formes évidentes et assumées ou cachées et perlocutoires. L’homo ludens est, par définition, aussi un homo juridicus, se soumettant aux règles des nombreux jeux qui caractérisent la vie en communauté.Dans cette recherche jurilinguistique sur les liens qui existent entre les concepts de « justice » et « jeu » à travers les discours médiatiques et littéraires, il a été mis en évidence l’impact émotionnel des normes qui régissent la société et qui affectent, même étymologiquement parlant, les membres de chaque groupe social. L’identité individuelle et collective se construisent grâce au jeu, élément socialisant par excellence, sous ses formes évidentes et assumées ou cachées et perlocutoires. L’homo ludens est, par définition, aussi un homo juridicus, se soumettant aux règles des nombreux jeux qui caractérisent la vie en communauté